Why do teenagers find SchülerVZ, flickr or YouTube so fantastic? What are they finding in the communities on the internet that doesn't exist in real life, and what exactly are they doing with it? The JFF- Institut für Medienpädagogik (Institute for Media Education) looks into these questions and learns from a 15 year-old "I think the future will just be one big Second Life."...
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The New York Review of Books | The Spectator | Polityka | Al
Ahram Weekly | The Guardian | Elet es Irodalom | The New Yorker | Nepszabadsag | The New
York Times
The New York Review of Books, 11.08.2005 (USA)
Former US diplomat Peter W. Galbraith sees two central problems in
Iraq: "the first is the insurgency and the second is an Iranian takeover.
The insurgency, for all its violence, is a finite problem. The
insurgents may not be defeated but they cannot win. This, of course,
raises a question about what a prolonged US military presence in Iraq
can accomplish, since there is no military solution to the problem of
Sunni Arab rejection of Shiite rule, which is now integral to the
insurgency.
Iraq's Shiites endured decades of brutal repression, to which the
United States was mostly indifferent. Iran, by contrast, was a good
friend and committed supporter of the Shiites. By bringing freedom to
Iraq, the Bush administration has allowed Iraq's Shiites to vote for
pro-Iranian religious parties that seek to create—and are creating —an
Islamic state. This is not ideal but it is the result of a democratic
process."
The Spectator, 23.07.2005 (GB)
In the leading article Anthony Browne reveals why in England of all
places, suicide bombers blow their fellow citizens into the air:
because the Left and the multiculturalists have talked the Brits into
hating themselves. This must come to an end, Browne declares: "Britain really
is great. These small rainswept isles off the western end of the vast
Eurasian landmass have contributed far more to the well-being of the
rest of humanity than any other country, bar none. Sometimes it takes a
foreigner to open your eyes. A Norwegian diplomat told me long ago that
he was taught at school, as British kids aren’t, that Britain gave the
world industrialisation, democracy and football — its economic system,
its political system and its fun. That is just the start of it."
Polityka, 23.07.2005 (Poland)
The debate over how to deal with Muslim immigrants is causing big waves
in Poland – the European country with the smallest percentage of
Muslims in the general population (approximately 0.01 percent).
Polityka has compiled an extensive dossier on the topic. Marek
Ostrowski reflects on the currents debates on the "inner enemies" of
European society and Oriana Fallaci's polemical attacks: "'They should
go home', she writes – but where is this exactly? The Arabs and Muslims
are a part of European society and to 'move them' somewhere else would
be like amputating a limb. To 'throw the Muslims out' could mean
figuratively that the people of Germany, England and France will try to
throw them out of society – erecting social and mental barriers as the
Israelis do with the Palestinians. Anti-Islamism could become a modern
version of anti-Semitism." The hard line against the terrorists being
demanded everywhere could also have its advantages for European Muslims
– it would help to free them from general suspicion, Ostrowski believes.
Adam Krzeminski, Germany correspondent of Polityka, analyses the European book market on the basis of the
best-seller lists. "We read crime fiction, we are interested in the sex
life of women of all ages, we are amusing ourselves to death and have
no desire to discuss literature. Half a million Europeans have no idea
how to talk to each other, we are too enclosed in our our language
circles. Only two authors address a pan-European readership: Dan Brown
and J.K. Rowling.
Al Ahram Weekly, 21.07.2005 (Egypt)
Fayza Hassan looks at two books that analyse the phenomena of Al-Jazeera. In "Al-Jazeera:
How Arab TV News Challenged the World", Hugh Miles
discusses how the Qatar-based broadcaster was initially assumed by Arab
govenments to be an American propaganda instrument. "President Hosni Mubarak, during a tour of the premises of Al-Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, with his
entourage while on an official visit to the small emirate in the spring
of 2000, was taken aback by the small scale of the operation. 'All this
trouble from a matchbox like this!' quipped the president. Yet four
years later, the Arab press was still describing the channel's offices
as lavish, wondering how Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al-Thani (interviewed here),
the Emir of Qatar, could afford to finance such a formidable venture
without foreign (anti-Arab) backing. And if Al-Jazeera managed in a
very short time to ruffle the feathers of the powers that be,
Eastern and Western, it was at the same time winning the undivided
attention of a politically savvy Arab public in dire need of timely,
well-informed news and intelligent, lively debates in a shared language
(classical Arabic)."
The Guardian, 23.07.2005 (GB)
Jane Stevenson reports on her experiences in the world's larges
library, the Biblioteca Apostolica in the Vatican, which she visited as
she researched her book about women who wrote in Latin. "Going inside
the Vatican feels a bit like entering a high-security prison. The main
structure, four cliff-like walls of dun-coloured stone, is built round
a bleak quadrangle and pierced by an archway: the blank rows of windows
stare down at a fountain basin which looks as if it has never in living
memory been filled with water. The Vatican City is also the biggest
men's club in the world, a place where it is made clear by every nuance
of its inhabitants' body-language that to be female is to be both
peculiar and negligible. It was therefore a very odd place to be
looking for women, a joke that I never attempted to share with anyone
within its sacred portals."
Elet es Irodalom, 22.07.2005 (Hungary)
Hungary
is celebrating the 100th birthday of Jenö Rejtö, the great adventure
and detective story writer of the 1930s, whose books - published under
the pseudonym P.Howard - are still best sellers today. But should he
really be taken seriously? Author Andras Cserna-Szabo is annoyed
by the narrow-mindedness of literary scholars who doubt this: "Why can
they still not understand that this Hungarian Jew, born Reich, was
simply a genius who, in his combination of pulp fiction and Budapest Cabaret, his created
a magical, unsettling, deeply fascinating world, which had never been
there before and which will never return - about which we would laugh
boistrously but with tears in our eyes. If the academics don't want
him, fine. Putting pearls before swine? We Hungarians are a hopeless
species somehow. While the Czechs have long since canonised their idiot savant Schweik,
and used him to entice tourists from all over the world
into their country, on Rejtö's 100th birthday the Hungarians stand
around conducting meaningless discussions about the difference
between
trivial and high culture!"
The historian Jozsef Martin celebrates Andras
Oplatka's
monograph "Graf Stephan Szechenyi. Der Mann, der Ungarn
schuf", (Count Graf Stephan Szechenyi. The man who created Hungary) but
wonders why such books are so rare, and why there has been so little exchange
between the small, neighbouring peoples of central Europe: "We
Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, Poles, Croats, Serbs and many others, know
so little about each other. There is less isolation in the relationship
between Germany and Hungary, at least with respect to literature;
evidence can be seen in the success of Peter Nadas, Peter Esterhazy, Imre Kertesz and the rediscovery of Sandor Marai
in the German-speaking world; but still nobody in Germany knows how to
pronounce the names of these authors. And we in Hungary know just as
little about how to pronounce the names of our near and yet distant neighbours."
The New Yorker, 01.08.2005 (USA)
In a highly amusing review Steven Shapin introduces a cultural
history of beverages: "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" (Walker) by Tom Standage attemps to trace the historical and social
meaning of what we drink. "The vast difference between 'Let’s get a cup
of coffee and talk about this' and 'Would you like to come up for a cup
of coffee?' has nothing to do with the physiological effects of the
beverage."
Nepszabadsag, 20.07.2005 (Hungary)
Peter Bartok, the Washington-based son of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok,
tells how difficult it is not to end up re-writing a deceased artist's
work, however committed one is to not tampering with the legacy: "We
try to
decide on a case-by-case basis which version of my father's was the
final one. But it's not enough just to analyse the manuscript, because
he often made chages on the galley proofs. ... When in doubt, I have to
just decide, and have the alternative versions printed in the
footnotes." Peter Bartok is no fan of radical new stagings, for
example, when a director changes the number of Duke Bluebeard's former wives -
the lovers at morning, noon and evening - from three to 13. "Imagine
Bluebeard singing: 'the first one I took at dawn, the second at
9:30, the third at 10:30, the next one at noon and so forth. That would
be absolute nonsense, even if the director could change the music."
The New York Times, 24.07.2005 (USA)
"Bob Woodward's book about Deep Throat is the best short discussion of
this distinction - between the reporter as private eye and the reporter
as stenographer - that has ever been published." With a sprinkling of
sentimentality, Christopher Hitchens, describes in his enthusiastic
review of Woodward's "The Secret Man" (first chapter) how
watching "All the President's Men" in the cinema, he and all his
young colleagues dreamed of having such a potent Fink, a "Friendly
Insider with Necessary Knowledge" in the hand, such as Mark Felt. But
he soon realised how powerless the press is when nobody is prepared to
speak. "The next quarter-century in Washington persuaded me that you
never get a seriously good scandal (here the official documents on
Watergate) unless there is a rift within the political establishment."
For the New York Times Magazine, Charles Siebert visited a very special
retirement home in the jungle of Louisiana. It is the Chimp Haven, the
federally-financed, well-earned and luxurious final resting place for
laboratory chimpanzees, complete with enrichment specialists, toys, CD
games and of course, television. "Younger chimps prefer kids' movies,
Disney specials, 'Barney' and the like. The mature chimps' tastes, on
the other hand, tend toward melodrama and anything with lots of action
and aggression. Soap operas like 'Passions' and 'General Hospital'
are big hits, the latter, it seems, because lab chimps have gotten so
used to people in white coats."
RSS
In the Hungarian Quarterly, Magda Szabo remembers how her first manuscript was smuggled out of Hungary and into the hands of a German publisher's reader by the name of Hermann Hesse. Portfolio portrays the new publisher of the Washington Post, Katherine Weymouth. The Financial Times portrays the editor of the New Yorker, David Remmick. In Espresso, Robert Saviano meet actors who would never join the Mafia. The Economist is amazed to see that the music industry is starting to wise up at last. And in the New Yorker, Chinese students ask why they need democracy.
"Hands off Lech Walesa!" demands Adam Michnik in the Gazeta Wyborcza. Polityka also defends the Solidarnosc leader against the hatred of the Kaczynski brothers. La vie des idees introduces a resistance programme against the dominance of English. In The Nation, Naomi Klein explains the neat rationale for pillaging Iraqi oil. Suketu Mehta encourages slum tourism in Espressso. Martina Navratilova lobs and smashes her way into the art world in the Spectator. And Elet es Irodalom can't get over the Dutch in Hungary.
In American Scholar, Yale professor William Deresiewicz sees the downside of his elite education while standing opposite his plumber. Wired welcomes in the Petabyte Age. Tygodnik Powszechny visits the "Sacroexpo" to look at camouflaged chalices. In the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith analyses the supra-Kafka. In L'Espresso, Umberto Eco explains the vocative to Italian ministerial officials. Merkur recommends that art critics take a leaf out of Theocritus' Fifteenth Idyll. And the New York Times goes out in search of children in Europe.
The New Republic portrays the last hero of Tiananmen, the surgeon Jiang Yanyong. In Tygodnik Powszechny, historian Jochen Staadt explains why Polish lustration is anything, but not a witch hunt. Polityka says Poles just wanna have fun. The Spectator fears that the Catholic Church is on the brink of civil war. Espresso portrays Italy's two most famous fugitives. The TLS reads Prokofiev's diaries. And the best English-language books of the moment, Outlook India claims, all come from Pakistan.
In Lettre International, philosopher Michail Ryklin explains how power functions. In Le Point, historian Patrice Gueniffey explains the revolutionary passion of the French. In the London Review, psychogeographer Iain Sinclair watches on as Olympic preparations destroy London's East End. In Polityka Adam Krzeminski is irritated by the Polish neo-National Democrats and the German Left. Atlantic hears the music in Rupert Murdoch's plans for the Wall Street Journal. The New Statesman remembers Austrian football hero Matthias Sindelar. Elet es Irodalom asks why we need literature?
The Economist watches the evolution of the book market. Theatre director Pawel Demirski tells Tygodnik Powszechny that Lech Walesa is a dead symbol for Polish youth. The TLS tells us why we're all geeks now. Espresso looks into the female face of India's future labour market. The New York Review of Books has the latest on the love affair between dopamine and the human brain. In Nouvel Obs anti-globalisation network Attac explains the effects of globalisation. In ResetDoc Zygmunt Bauman tells us what to do about it. And the New York Times takes us down to PigCity.
The London Review wishes Elfriede Jelinek's novel "Gier" had never been translated. Polityka provides a history of Polish anti-Semitism - in German too. In Clarin, Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava is confident that our cities will soon become pleasant places to live. In Gazeta Wyborcza, political scientist Ivan Krastev assuages ex-Yugoslavian fears that the end of the EU is nigh. In the Guardian, Ian McEwan pours cold water on apocalyptic belief. Al Ahram looks back at the history of the Jews in Egypt. And the New York Times admires Pakistan's strongest democratic weapon: men in black.
The New Humanist observes the rise of Muslim Creationism. Nepszabadsag wonders how democracy should deal with covert racism. The New Yorker introduces Dr. Fadl, a reformed terrorist and one of al-Qaeda's fiercest critics. In the New York Review of Books, the head of the Harvard library explains why the news is only a story. Caffe Europa describes the xenophobia of Italian politicians. Die Weltwoche warily watches the vicious hoodies in the new Justice video.
In the London Review of Books, Kevin Kopelson spills the beans about his plagiarism-littered path to professorship. Elet es Irodalom is green with envy over the independence of the Polish press. The Christians had it better under Nasser and Saddam Hussein, claims Coptic priest Giuseppe Scattolin in Resetdoc. In Le point, Bernard-Henri Levy spits out a colourful array of adjectives to describe the regime in Burma. And in L'Espresso, Umberto Eco analyses how the Mafia is murdering with the times.
In Eurozine the 69-year-old Catalan philosopher Xavier Rubert de Ventos admits to his growing radicality. In Nepszabadsag the 75-year-old writer György Konrad declares: remembering is rebellion. In Artforum the 84-year-old philosopher Artur C. Danto thinks about art and revolution. In The New Republic Anne Applebaum takes a hammer to Nicholson Baker's pacifist polemic "Human Smoke". In Folio Christian Demand sends out a distress signal for art criticism. And the Spectator portrays the Anglican Church's only openly gay Bishop.
In the TLS, tenor Ian Bostridge writes about music under totalitarianism. The New Yorker introduces the millionaire-nerd-led group "Intellectual Ventures". Caffe Europe describes Aldo Moro's attempt to reconcile Church and communism. Nepszabadsag and Elet es Irodalom analyse the frequently misundertood concept of "competition" in Hungary. The London Review of Books explains Thabo Mbeki's motivations for backing Mugabe. And in the Weltwoche, violinist Julia Fischer demonstrates how to put up a wall.
Literaturen searches in the giant haystack of literature on '68 for a book on equal rights. The TLS rediscovers the man who sexed the English language. In Outlook India, political scientist Kishore Mahbubani closes the lid on Western cultural dominance. The New York Review of Books looks at the dominance of the national conservatives in Putin's Russia. Le Monde des livres reports on a clash of historians over the role of Islam in the Middle Ages. The Economist fears for freedom of the press in Eastern Europe. And the New York Times portrays Egyptian author Alaa Al Aswan.
In the Weltwoche, Tom Ford makes the case for full, natural pubic hair. Vanity Fair blames Bill Keller for the diminishing Timesness of the New York Times. In Espresso, Umberto Eco mourns the diminishing importance of the newpapers all together. The Times waves its fork about over the English breakfast. In L'Express, über ad-man Maurice Levy wants to give the industry a complete rehaul. The LRB experiences the joy of French painting, the TLS the joy of German Romanticism, the Economist the joy of Japanese "infantile capitalism and Al Ahram, the joy of Russian photography. The New Yorker conquers English with Li Yang.
Elet es Irodolam knows that 'minor literature' doesn't have to be political to be political. World Affairs defends Hirsi Ali, Bruckner and Berman against Buruma, Garton Ash und Ramadan. Rue 89 works through a black book of censorship. In the TLS professor of geriatric medicine, Raymond Tallis, argues that too much brain is the death of literary criticism. Hector Abad speaks out against literary protectionism in Semana. Outlook India is thoroughly put out: revolution is simply not cricket. And Vanity Fair plunges into icy water with the Russians.