What we should really care about ...

So many things I want to do become irrelevant, when I watch the news about Japan and Libya on TV. I worry about friends I have in dangerous parts of the world , but there is not much I can do. So, as a means of distraction, I switch to another channel and hit "Germany's Next Top Model",  a "casting show" (as they are called in German) hosted by Heidi Klum.

I must admit, I stayed glued to the screen until the end. What am I worrying about, I ask myself, when there are REAL PROBLEMS ... such as if you are wearing the right dress or shoes while walking along the catwalk ? Ahh,  walking .... I don't know how I have survived more than 50 years with my unsexy and uninspirational walk. It is a wonder anybody talks to me ! And the bitch fights: a girl is not chosen at once as a flat mate - tears, long discussions. One girl is praised by presenter and photographer... jealousy.

Yes, I know. These shows are not about finding talents, they are about entertainment. The candidates are used by the production company and put into certain situations, so that in the end something interesting, shocking and entertaining can be shown. How many girls enter a competition like this with high hopes and dreams and in the end are simply exploited?

Commercial TV is about selling advertising time. The adverts that interrupt the programme  are, of course, about beauty products. Again I am fascinated by what I need and have not got . When I realized that my armpits will never be "beautiful", because I am using the wrong deodorant, I lost all hope that I will ever be able to catch up...

Demostrations against nuclear power ? Peace walks ?  Protecting the environment, saving the earth ? Equal pay for men and women ? Human rights ? People dying ?  Who is interested in that ? 

Who wants us not to be interested ?

Tagesschau online (German news programme)

Help Japan

If I ignore those for whom the terrible plight of the Japanese people is only a way of making money, I  see pictures that touch my heart.

I see the dignity and calmness with which the people in Japan go through these difficult times. My heart bleeds when I see children  ... it bleeds for them and their parents. I see the true heroes of our days: the technicians and firefighters  in the power plant risking their lives to avoid the final catastrophe.

All I personally can do is pray - and support relief agencies with a donation.  Money that says "We are thinking of you.. you are not forgotten."

Please ... help in the way you can.

A Prayer from Japan

For those who pray I want to include the text of the prayer that the German Protestant community in Tokyo published at the weekend:

FÜRBITTENGEBET
Gott, du hast die Welt geschaffen. Dafür waren wir immer dankbar. Darauf haben wir immer vertraut, dass wir ein Teil deiner Schöpfung sind, von dir gewollt und zu Gutem bestimmt.
Jetzt haben wir erlebt, dass deine Schöpfung auch ein anderes Gesicht hat. Wir haben erlebt, wie klein wir Menschen sind.
Manche von uns haben Stunden der Angst erlebt, Stunden der Unsicherheit und Sorge. Die Menschen in der Erdbebenregion haben ihr Leben verloren, ihre Angehörigen, ihre Existenz.
Und der Schrecken ist noch nicht vorbei. Das Kernkraftwerk in Fukushima ist noch nicht sicher.
Dennoch hoffen wir auf dich, Gott, halten an dir fest und bitten dich um deine Gegenwart in all diesen schlimmen Erfahrungen.

Wir bitten für die Familien, die nicht wissen, ob ihre Angehörigen noch leben.
Wir bitten für die Verstorbenen.
Wir bitten für die Menschen in den Notunterkünften.
Wir bitten für die Menschen, die vor dem Nichts stehen.
Wir bitten für die vielen Helfer, die ihr Leben für andere aufs Spiel setzen.

An dir halten wir uns fest, Gott, gerade, wenn uns der Boden unter den Füßen wegrutscht.
Auf dich hoffen wir, in allem, was wir erleben, ertragen, durchmachen müssen.
Begleite du uns, dass wir nicht verzweifeln.
Hilf uns, aufeinander zu achten, richtige Entscheidungen zu treffen und zu helfen, wo wir können. Amen. 

My English translation:

 God, you have created the world. We have always been thankful for it. We have always trusted that we are part of your creation, wanted by you, meant to do good. 

Now we have experienced that your creation can also have a different face. We have experienced how small we humans are.

Some of us have experienced hours of fear, of insecurity and of worries. People in the earthquake region have lost their lives, their relatives, their livelihood.

And the horror is not over. The nuclear power plant in Fukushima is not secure yet.

And yet, oh Lord, we have our hopes in you and ask for your presence in all these terrible moments.

We pray for the families, who do not know, if their members are still alive.

We pray for the dead.

We pray for the people in emergency shelters.

We pray for people who have lost everything.

We pray for the many helpers who risk their lives for others.

In you we trust, God, particularly when the ground has been taken from under our feet.

Facing everything we must experience, suffer and go through, we put our hopes in you.

Accompany us that we do not despair.

Help us to take care of each other, to make the right decisions and to help where we can.

Amen.

(Translation SK/15th March, 2011)

http://www.ekd.de/bilder/rubrik_glauben_2009.jpg

When Disaster Strikes: Japan and the Media

Do you remember Tchernobyl 1986? When you lived in Europe at that time, you know about the accident in the Ukranian  nuclear power plant  - the worst one in history. It had far reaching effects, not only for the region,but the nuclear fallout affected also northern and central Europe - up to the present day. In those days we wanted and needed information, which we got from TV and radio. Reliable, factual information, so I felt. I remember that I was worried, but not in panic (and that this nourished my suspicion against nuclear power plants, but that is a different topic).

In those days we had mainly the public broadcasting services for information and they did a good job.

When the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan, we had already lived in the age of commercial TV for more than 20 years. Due to Internet and advanced technologies we were flooded with pictures of the disaster immediately. Media were competing for the most terrible disaster scenario .

And then nuclear power plants in Japan were affected, there was an explosion - and, naturally, we worry. All TV channels brim with activity. Special news programmes. Everybody who knows how to spell "nuclear power" is called in as a specialist and interviewed. They cannot say much, of course, facts are hard to come by. So they say what they think. In between some "human interest stories" -  and one journalist remarked that the Japanese were taking all this with amazingly little panic. Yeah, what a pity, would have made great pictures for the evening news, wouldn't it?

In fact, I am fed up with the "news coverage" of this. It does not help anybody, least of all the people in Japan and neighbouring countries . I want to know if my friends in that part of the world are ok, but I don't learn that on TV. I want facts and information. But what I don't want is sensationalist reports, pictures of crying children (I can imagine myself that the Japanese are not exactly having a party there) and a disaster simply used for selling advertising time.

And least of all do I need worried discussions about the question what the nuclear fallout could do to Germany. I feel it is necessary we dicuss our own nuclear power plants.

As to Japan, I   feel deeply with the people there.All I can do is donate to relief agencies and pray for them  - and ignore those who want to make money out of a terrible catastrophe.

Stuff as TV shows are made on ?

This morning I remembered one of my favourite Shakespeare quotations, taken from his last play "The Tempest":

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

(The Tempest, Act IV,1)

"The Tempest" takes place on a magic island and with these words the "master" and magician Prospero ends the show. Both, the play and this quote, leave a lot of room for interpretation I don't want to discuss here. And the idea that "all the world's a stage" (As You Like It , Act II,7) shines through his plays also at other places. 

In his time, Shakespeare was a star writing  plays that people from all social spheres watched and loved. Today we have TV - and we have things like "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" (= DSDS, the German version of "American Idol"). Of course, this show is not about finding and supporting talented young artists - it is about selling advertising time. After 10 years, people singing wrong notes is not enough to attract the audience's attention, so more exciting stuff has to be staged. In the last season one of the contestants had to go to prison half -way through the show. And just now I saw a magazine informing the bored viewer about the "biggest  fight in the history of DSDS." !!  It is a childish argument between two of the girls - so obviously written into the show by those who make it. Boring, shallow, blown up out of proportion . I prefer Shakespeare  any time...

And yet, it makes me wonder ... I hope we are not such stuff as TV shows are made on ...

(http://www.dsds-superstar.com)

Romance Scammers - A Serious Comment

I have  already written about the positive sides of Internet, but on 14th February you can find a slightly ironic post making fun of some of the more amateurish romance scammers I came across. But there is a serious background to it and I want to comment on it here.

Like already mentioned in the Valentine's post,  romance scamming is no fun for the victim. I read heart-breaking stories of women or men for whom the material loss was not the most terrible thing, but who suffered for a long time from what can only be described as a traumatic experience. They had opened their hearts to someone, they had trusted him/her, had fallen in love, had thought they had found happiness - and then suddenly they found out that the "someone" did not even exist.

And that brings us to the negative sides of Internet. It is easy to pretend to be someone you are not - everybody can pose as someone else. The only solution is to be careful, never give away too much information too soon and ask questions. An honest person does not mind if you are suspicious, but beware of those who talk of "trust" and "confidence" as an immediate must when meeting a stranger.

By the way, you are not on the safe side when you avoid dating websites. Scammers can be found everywhere: Facebook, for example, is full of them, and I was contacted by several scammers on a site where I practise languages. So be careful who you add as a friend and who you talk to.

There are sites on the Internet that help when you have become a victim of a romance scam or if you want to get further information.

All in all, I have found more friends than scammers online - and I wish you all the same good experiences !!!

Scammer Cat ... I don't know who owns the copyright for this, but I found it on this blog.

Romance Scammers

It is Valentine's Day today - the day of lovers and loved ones. The Internet message boards I am member of are full of romantic Valentine wishes for those who are in a relationship and even more wishes for those, who are not. So I am writing about something romantic, too : romance scammers. They pretend to love you, but are only after your money.

After I personally  have been bored by so many amateurs, I thought it is high time someone writes a guide for young men who want to try this as a living. So here are some points a professional should consider:

- Check your English. Chances are you come across a teacher of English who gets very suspicious if you claim to be an academic and native speaker, but can't write a single complete sentence without mistakes.
- Check your victim's age. If she is older than 50, she might have children of her own and thus might  not be interested in becoming the step-mother of a motherless 11-year-old girl, who will be a bitchy teenager faster than you can say "puberty".
- Particularly  don't say you are widowed with a pre-teenage kid when she is a teacher ! She deals with them in her job, she doesn't want to have any at home  as well.
- Don't move too fast: it is very suspicious if you say you cannot stop thinking of her and she is the woman of your life after half an hour of chat and a blurry photo.
- Don't be too insistant on getting her mobile phone number, a better photo, her real name, address, job information, income and things like that too soon, and particularly don't ask for this at your first "date".
- Don't ask for money after all together a few hours of contact. And the argument : "Yes, you are clever to be careful, but if you give me the money, you will see that I pay back..." is not very convincing. In fact, a professional scammer doesn't ask, but waits until money is offered.

In other words: LEAVE ME ALONE and don't bore me with your stupid stories !!

PS:
Sarcasm alert ... yes, the obove is meant ironically. There are  warning websites on the Internet  and if you never heard this term and are single, you should go and study them. Romance scamming is no joke for the victim, but maybe the above helps to raise awareness.

And: I still  wish you all a lovely and enjoyable Valentine's Day  !!!