In the television series Krimi.de, young detectives carry on investigations in four German cities: all without a special police unit and staff cars, but with courage and good ideas....
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L'Espresso | Le Nouvel Observateur | The Atlantic | Outlook India | Commentary | London Review of Books | La vie des idees | ADN cultura | The Economist | Elet es Irodalom
L'Espresso 17.10.2008 (Italy)
Politics and religion, groans Umberto Eco in his Bustina di Minerva, is not only disastrously linked on the far side of the Atlantic. In his own Catholic homeland, fundamentalists are gaining ground among the Christians. "Whereas in the past, American fundamentalists drew a thick line between themselves and the Catholics, Catholics today are moving ever closer to fundamentalist positions and not only in America (just look at the bizarre return of anti-Darwinism after years of a Church-orchestrated ceasefire on the evolutionary theory front). That the Italian Church did not join sides with a practising Catholic like Prodi, but jumped into bed with a confesssionless, rakish divorcee, raises the suspicion that, in Italy too, the voices of the believers are now being offered to the first politician who, independent of any religious values, is prepared to make maximum concessions to whatever dogmatic powers support him."
Le Nouvel Observateur 16.10.2008 (France)
It is absurd to present religious fundamentalists as a counterforce to modernity, Islam expert Oliver Roy tells the Nouvel Obs, when they are actually more like agents of modernity. "Globalisation has strengthened fundamentalist forms of religion, whether we are talking about Islamic Salafism or the Protestantism of the Evangelicals. For the fundamentalists, the worldly cultures - traditional or modern - are pure heathenism. They are opposed to culture because it does nothing for religion and is therefore useless, or it is even seen as a hindrance to authentic religious practice. The fundamentalists do not only not suffer from culture's retreat under the sign of globalism, they are actually profiting from it." Roy has just published a new book in France, "La Sainte Ignorance" (Seuil)
The Atlantic 01.11.2008 (USA)
In an detailed and illuminating article, Andrew Sullivan, former editor-in-chief of The New Republic explains "Why I Blog". As he sees it, the hotly disputed question of whether blogs will replace long newspaper articles, is a redundant one: after all jazz did not take out classical music. "This is actually a golden era for journalism. The blogosphere has added a whole new idiom to the act of writing and has introduced an entirely new generation to nonfiction. It has enabled writers to write out loud in ways never seen or understood before. And yet it has exposed a hunger and need for traditional writing that, in the age of television's dominance, had seemed on the wane."
Further articles: James Fallows asks: "How can official China possibly do such a clumsy and self-defeating job of presenting itself to the world?" Jeffrey Goldberg explains why airport controls are a waste of time, after he successfully smuggled two cans of Budweiser Light though the metal detectors in a neoprene beer belly. Paul Bloom presents the latest findings from the neuroscience of identity (in the first person plural).
Outlook India 27.10.2008 (India)
Sanjay Suri is a little peeved that the Booker Prize went to Aravind Adiga's novel "The White Tiger" (excerpt): "There is truth in what he says, both about the anger in the underbelly and the unmindful middle class. The difficulty many have with the book is in the tone, the calculated coinciding of an observation with what a Western eye would like to see."
Commentary 01.11.2008 (USA)
Financial journalist John Steele Gordon sees the current finance crisis not as the fallout of rampant capitalism but, to the contrary, as the result of the failure of the so-called "government sponsored enterprises" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned about half of the 12 trillion dollars in outstanding mortgages, an unprecedented concentration of debt - and of risk." Thanks to the regulations adopted in 1995 under Clinton, "Fannie and Freddie were now permitted to invest up to 40 times their capital in mortgages; banks, by contrast, were limited to only ten times their capital. Put briefly, in order to increase the number of mortgages Fannie and Freddie could underwrite, the federal government allowed them to become grossly undercapitalized - that is, grossly to reduce their one source of insurance against failure. That was bad enough; then came politics to make it much worse. ... Unlike other large, profit-seeking financial institutions, they were headquartered in Washington, D.C., and were political to their fingertips. Their management and boards tended to come from the political world, not the business world. And some were corrupt. ... Moreover, both companies made generous political contributions, especially to those members of Congress who sat on oversight committees."
London Review of Books 19.10.2008 (UK)
John Lancaster has a very different take on the financial crisis: "A huge unregulated boom in which almost all the upside went directly into private hands, followed by a gigantic bust in which the losses were socialised. That is literally nobody's idea of how the financial system is supposed to work. It is just as much an abomination to the free marketeer as it is to the social democrat or outright leftist. But the models and alternatives don't seem to be forthcoming: there is an ideological and theoretical vacuum where the challenge from the left used to be. Capitalism no longer has a global antagonist, just at the moment when it has never needed one more if only to clarify thinking and values, and to provide the chorus of jeering and Schadenfreude which at this moment is deeply appropriate. I would be providing it myself if I werent so frightened."
La vie des idees 17.10.2008 (France)
As the markets crash around us, everybody keeps harping on about the return of the state, notes philosopher and civil society theorist Bruno Bernardi, but it's not that simple: "The nationalisation we are seeing at the moment, whether part or full, open or disguised, is limited to financial companies. It neither represents the return of a state-run economy, nor the return of the state as employer, but something fundamentally new: the institution of the state which runs a financial market. This means restructuring the market as a state institution or restructuring the state as a market facility."
ADN cultura 19.10.2008 (Argentina)
Susana Reinoso conducts an interview with author Paolo Coelho who was celebrated at the Frankfurt Book Fair for selling his first 100 million books. "I have no idea what an Argentinian, a Norwegian and a Chinese have in common, but they all read my books. This gives me hope that culture can still function as a bridge. While everything else collapses the economy and politics, people can still communicate, with the help of stories, of literature, painting and music. As for internet piracy, it can't be turned back. But not to worry, when everyone is a pirate, a new system will come into being. The illegal will become legal. It was like that with the English: first of all they were pirates, then lords, and that's how they created an empire. The internet is a very positive and strong instrument for social activity. I spend three hours a day on the internet. The only danger I see is in the search engines, where the potential for manipulation lies. The book still has a special value in the internet: what you can't find on the market, you can find there."
The Economist 17.10.2008 (UK)
The Economist comments rather drily on the discovery of Milan Kundera's signature at the bottom of a letter denouncing a Czech spy. "As Mr Kundera himself has written so eloquently, 'the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.' Under totalitarianism, fairy tales good and bad often trumped truth. Some heroes of the Prague Spring in 1968 had been enthusiastic backers of the Stalinist regime's murderous purges after the communist putsch of 1948. Mr Hradilek [the man who found the incriminating file -ed.] surmises that Mr Kundera probably acted out of self-interest, not malice or conviction. Millions faced such choices in those times. Some have owned up; many have not. Countless episodes like that linger over eastern Europe like an invisible toxic cloud."
The Economist has been sending out warning signals about the credit crunch since December 2004 - on its font cover. Gawker has compiled these images of doom.
Elet es Irodalom 17.10.2008 (Hungary)
Since the fall of communism, more and more foreigners are moving to Hungary. But the Hungarian state has yet to find a strategy to help these immigrants integrate into their new surroundings and the population is not always open to new arrivals, as Gabor Michalko, of the Geographical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), explains in an interview: "The Hungarians tend to be rather wary of outsiders, sometimes even suspicious and hostile, they are slow to open up and make friends. Unfortunately this in an inherited pattern. In the past two decades since the end of communism, there have undoubtedly been countless changes for the good, basically because of the new generation which, despite economic difficulties, finds it much easier to travel abroad and learn about new customs. But the process is achingly slow. On the language skills front, there has been no clear improvement, and the Hungarians continue to be literally and mentally immobile."
RSS
The New York Times investigates the new hunger for reality. In Salon, Andrzej Stasiuk sees only individual realities. In the Gazeta Wyborcza, the ethnologist Tomasz Rakowski describes the reality of the Polish poor mines. Sometimes you can turn reality on its head, El Pais reads in the Financial Times. Le Monde diplomatique gives the low-down on the ACTA talks. And the New Yorker dreams of less polish and a bit more grit.
In Magyar Narancs Agnes Heller demands more civil courage of the Hungarians. Mohammed Ali Atassi explains in Qantara, why conservatives in Egypt see women as candy: either wrapped or covered in flies. Oliver Roy outlines in Resetdoc, why's there not so much as a hair's breadth between the Christian right and the secular left. In Magazin, the philosopher Ludwig Haslar tells the Swiss that if they want mediocrity today, they cannot expect the superman tomorrow. Jonathan Safran Foer tells Prospect why he neither wants a chicken in his bed nor on his plate. The NYT embarks on a human-flesh search and finds a kitten killer.
The New Yorker tells the story of how corrupt podiatrists almost brought down the US health system. In Polityka, the Kapuscinski biographer Artur Domoslawski explains how he thinks the legendary reporter should be read. In Tygodnik, Zygmunt Bauman calls for more understanding for Kapuscinski. Magyar Narancs celebrates the ban on Holocaust denial in Hungary. In Le Point, Jorge Semprun asks whether Claude Lanzmann is the only person who's allowed to talk about the Holocaust. Wired describes how Google learned how to tell the difference between a hot dog and a poached pooch.
In Eurozine, the Transylvanian-Hungarian-Armenian writer Kinga Kali tells the story of a "virgjinesha". Prospect celebrates the next art superstar, Argentinian painter Guillermo Kuitca. The Gazeta Wyborcza explains how young people use the web. The New Yorker sends out a message to the depressed: stay away from psychiatric literature. Outlook Indian learns to play Carnatic music online. The London Review swims with the salmon sages.
The Atlantic finds out why the Chinese are not enemy number one in cyberspace. Elet es Irodalom asks why no one in Hungary is interested in former informers. In New Statesman, Tariq Ramadan can't tell us what a moderate Muslim is. The Guardian hearkens to the ticking bomb in Emily Dickinson's bosom and links it to the shards of crockery on the floor. And if it can't smoke, El Pais Semanal wants everything painted black.
In Prospect, Tim Berners-Lee invites the world to play with the British government's data. England, not Nigeria belongs on the terrorist list, literary Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka informs The Daily Beast. In Rue 89, Beppe Grillo explains why Sarkozy is more dangerous than Berlusconi. In Tygodnik Powszechny, Stefan Chwin mourns for the Polish idealist. Polityka reveals where a Pole turns to when he's not allowed to marry. Olga Tokarczuk walks her Polish tangle around Amsterdam for Salon. And the Guardian thinks about Armenian women rubbing their soft breasts on a stone.
In Wired, Chris Anderson celebrates the next industrial revolution - taking place in garages near you. The Boston Globe serenades the camel - Nabati style. In El Pais Semenal, the sociologist Edgar Morin complains about European lethargy. Outlook India asks why the Australians hate the Indians. Odra and Tygodnik are still debating the impact of freedom on literature. In OpenDemocracy, Salome Zourabichvili mourns for the wilted petals of the rose revolution. In Prospect, Martin Amis divides the literary sheep from the goats, according to the pleasure principle. The NYT profiles a dyed-in-the-wool jihadist from Alabama.
Das Magazin reports on the dramatic increase in the number of pupils who have threatened to gun down their classmates. The Spectator warns City bankers about gun-wielding dominatrices in Switzerland. In Sinn und Form, Marc Fumaroli remembers the man whose name shall not be mentioned: Mario Praz. In the New Humanist, Laurie Taylor remembers the holy men who sexually abused him as a child. The Guardian asks why Theo von Doesburg slipped into avant garde oblivion. And in the NYRB, Garry Kasparov asks why computer chess programmers are so uninspired?
OpenDemocracy explains why a novel called "Paranoia" suddenly disappeared from Belarussian bookshops. Prospect fears that a ban on Islam4UK could undermine British democracy. The Gazeta Wyborcza explores Polish-Jewish relations. Le Monde diplomatique watches the carving up of Africa. In El Pais Semanal, maths whizz Marcus du Sautoy explains the sex appeal of suduko. And Gerhard Richter manages to surprise the Nation.
The New Yorker buries itself in the Arab novel. In Le Monde, Bernard-Henri Levy heaps scorn on the state-run caricature of a debate. Qantara points to the person responsible for all the misery in the Arab world: Daddy. In L'Espresso, Umberto Eco takes a pin to the overblown daily paper. The Nation has earmarked 30 billion dollars to save journalism. In Tygodnik Powszechny, the writer Wojciech Albinski explains what makes Poland exotic. And the Spectator waves a tear-stained old hanky as shabby chic fades into the past.
In Merkur, art historian Wolfgang Ullrich defines a new type of artist: the contractor. In Nepszabadsag, writer Peter Nadas considers the crisis in Hungary and how it might end. In NouvelObs, Francis Ford Coppola explains why DVDs should be free. Eurozine introduces Lithuanian literature. In the New York Review of Books, Wyatt Manson asks why Pleiade is omitting Celine's anti-Semitic trilogy from the collected works. In Express, Philippe Gavi reminds us that Mohammed was not a crazed killer. A Californian marvels in NZZ Folio, at the reincarnation of an Indian factory worker. And confronted with the recent proliferation of literary cuddling, the New York Times yearns for a bit of Philip Roth.
Wired tracks James Cameron's 32-year quest to out-Lucas Lucas. In Nouvel Obs, Alain Finkielkraut and Alain Badiou tear each other apart over immigration and national identity. Tygodnik Powszechny introduces the pioneering artist Miroslaw Balka. Andras Bozoki asks why Hungarians are undermining democracy. In The New Statesman, Leo McKinstry explains why the bombing of Coventry was an inspiration to the British Air Staff.
Vanity Fair goes in search of a superpartner. Elet es Irodalom reads a new collection of essays by Imre Keresz. Outlook India complains about journalistic corruption. The New Yorker reads a new Koestler biography. Nepszabadsag foresees the next French revolution. Rue89 wonders about the provenance of prawns. And in the New Republic, Moshe Halberthal celebrates the sublime humility of Amartya Sen.
In Wilson Quarterly, the economist Tyler Cowen sings an ode to multitasking. Prospect has seen the monsters of the left. The Boston Globe follows James C. Scott to the new Shangri-La in the mountains of Tibet. Weltwoche is up in arms about the criticism of Switzerland's anti-minaret vote. In the Novel Obs, Pierre Nora applies his mind to the bestseller. New Criterion knows why the Pop art bubble won't pop. NZZ Folio examines the chicken nugget. Al Ahram asks what political Islam wants. The Walrus mourns for the first victim of the C-58. In Resetdoc, Joseph Massad explains why Arab homosexuals are an invention of the West.
Slovenian poet Ales Debeljak argues for a fusion of cultures in Eurozine. Umberto Eco agrees in Le Monde. The Nation portrays the Salvadorian author Horacio Castellanos Moya, who himself explains in Babelia why 200 years after independence there's nothing to celebrate in a number of Latin American countries. Polityka lies Poland down on the couch. La vie des idees reads a book on Jews and the resistance in France. Americans read more than Europeans, writes historian Peter Baldwin in Merkur. And in The New York Review of Books Robert Darnton makes two bold proposals for a new Book Settlement.