The ice-caps and glaciers melt, polar bears are stranded, Pacific islands are flooded and the media tries to talk us out from taking vacations abroad - and the Olympic torch starts its "highly symbolic" 136,000-km journey around the world.
A handful of Tibetans protested, but Green Peace and the ilk don't seem to mind the tons of fossil fuel burnt for this rather pointless publicity stunt originally invented and promoted by the Nazis.
"Sporting chivalrous contest," Hitler declared just before the first ever torch was lit, "helps knit the bonds of peace between nations. Therefore may the Olympic flame never expire."
Chief Beijing organizer Liu Qi pointed out that the summit of Mount Everest was on the torch's destination list, "testifying to the great strength of the Olympic movement in marking the progress of human civilisation". Exactly how?
The headlines list of latest news alone could give you a major neurosis: wars, catastrophes, financial scandals, air and road crashes, natural disasters, bomb explosions, hostage crises, violent protests. News agencies also make sure you never miss a single freak accident in the world: every alligator attack and private jet emergency landing is broadcast to every TV-owning household in the world as The Breaking News. The few far-and-between pieces with any positive tint are unfailingly sex, glamour or sports-related.
In the words of Professor Preobrazhensky from Russia's beloved The Heart Of A Dog, 'Never read Bolshevik newspapers before dinner!' The Bolsheviks long dead and gone, we are still fed the daily diet of gory carnage and human misery.
Luckily, some want to make a difference. Optimist World's News section puts together positive developments, of which there seem to be quite a few, despite the gloom and doom of the mainstream media. The website also has Travel, Sports and Business sections where listings are arranged in more mindful way than we usually see. Feels like a gulp of fresh air.
Last night on Jeremy Paxman's Newsnight it was revealed by people such as Colin Powell and Wilkinson (the head of the CIA's European operations) that the premise for war Iraq was a hoax.
Even more, it turns out that it was known prior to the war to both the US and British intelligence services that the ONLY informer on whose testimonial of Saddam's biological, chemical and nuclear thereat was based was a fabricator. The man in question - an Iraqi chemical engineer who defected to Germany - made up lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction hoping to speed up his asylum application and German citizenship procedure. His former boss alleged that he "was doing it for his family".
But if you look at the headlines line-up of the BBC World Service, there is no sign of this scandalous revelation. We are treated to such defining moments of the humankind's history as a Norwegian house collapse, Singapore grounding an A380 and a Finn held over an Easter Island ear.
That is exactly how information is controlled in free societies - by swamping important news with an ocean of factoids and anecdotal pieces.
Back in the olden days my teacher of Old Japanese wouldn't make us memorise ancient verses or multi-level tables of verbs conjugation. Instead, she could make us feel as if we lived in the period.
She was a zany bohemian divorced from a renown Buddhist priest, addicted to sake and short strong cigarettes. Her deliciously dilapidated wooden house in Nara, Japan's original capital, was exposed to all the world's winds - just the way it was supposed to be to satisfy traditional aesthetics. Every day she would travell 3 hours one way to come to tell us about the beauty of Japanese black lacquerware, the advantages of eating with chopsticks over Western cutlery, or her clandestine (and imaginary of course) affair with the author of Tsurezuregusa. She would back up her views with citations from ancient poets while puffing away smelly Gauloises.
* * *
Heian aristocracy chose the colours of their clothing according to the season, travelled around in bull carts, believed in free marriage and 10 thousands gods and didn't form families. Bisexuality was a norm (among the elite, at any rate) and Heian criteria of female beauty were long hair and verse-writing skills. Women took steam baths and blackened their teeth with pine tar. To keep their elaborate hairdos intact they would sleep on a wooden chip as a pillow. The Japanese character for pillow still has the "wood"radical in it.
After a night of love, it was customary to exchange self-written poems dealing with the the encounter as the theme. The poems were evaluated on the style, content and calligraphy. There had to be an allusion to the season and an allegorical reference to the encounter itself, all expressed in a strictly defined number of syllables. Not a mean feat after a night of steamy love-making. Clumsy poets stood lesser chance to get laid afterwards.
There was hardly any furniture in their minimalist palaces and no animal meat on their tables - recently converted Buddhists they were careful about not spoiling their karma for future re-births. First Japanese literature classics - Makura No Soushi, Tsurezuregusa and Kagero Nikki - date back from that period as well as the most recognizable classic Japanese graphic concept - yamato-e. Heian emperors were continuously engaged in fighting for living space with the mysterious Emishi people - the indigenous pre-Japanese inhabitants of the islands.
Yes, and they had no idea about Europe, which at the time was dragging a miserable existence through the Dark Ages.
This was my favourite show and I think it was brilliant. Each and every one of the Friends cast has starred in feature films since the show ended and it couldn't be more disappointing for a former fan: it turned out they can only play themselves.
Same mannerisms, same facial expressions, same ways of delivering gags, same everything as in the good ole days minus Phoebe's songs (which she didn't write herself anyway). It is as if they are afraid to scare away their luck by trying something beyond their Friends characters. What a dud, they really should have retired with the millions they earned when on Friends and stop disappointing their fan base time and time again! Yawnorama.
"A US container ship approaching the Suez Canal has opened fire on a small Egyptian motorboat selling local merchandise. One man was killed and two others wounded, reports say."
It would be just yet another episode of the big guy's high-handed approach - what else is new? - but for the ship's name, the Global Patriot. Now, Alanis, this is what you can call "ironic".
The first democracy ever - the Classical Greek one - was a society of leisurely arts and sports inclined gentlemen supported by the slave labour of thousands.
Modern democracies, if you look into it, are just the same, only we have managed to move slavery outside our borders. The First World is relishing its enlightened existence while sapping resources from the Third World through the intricate yet overwhelmingly powerful financial system. In the irresponsible Neo-colonialism model, the coloniser still benefits from exploiting the colonised country yet is exempt from the responsibility of managing it.
The millions of illegal immigrants in the US - a country founded by slave-owning gentlemen - contribute greatly to the economy, yet are mostly barred from the access to education, social security or healthcare. The present EU model is more benevolent but in principle is very similar. The new members provide cheap labour and energy-extensive industrial manufacturing base on top of the estimated 500,000 trafficked 'slave' workers. Investment from the "Old Europe" are business projects primarily aimed at expanding trade markets for well established European multinationals.
In a similar fashion, the Western aid provided to Africa goes to funding projects awarded to Western companies or just promptly travels back to the Swiss accounts belonging to the ruling African elite. Thus, in the world's leaders in luxury Champagne imports like Nigeria, the bulk of population suffers their whole lives in abject poverty.
Curiously enough, it is a known fact that all the profit the Arab oil-producers made from the 1972 Oil Crisis ended up in Western banks. That's the way it is, riches attract more riches.
I could continue on and on, but I think I have made my point. It's all shamefully unfair, but well, who said this world is a fair place?
Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran is a sweet if soppy film but all its downfalls are redeemed by the wise maxim one of the protagonists played by Omar Sharif (he got a César for this role), 'La lenteur, c'est bonheur' - Slowness is happiness. He goes on to explain that if you do anything you do slowly you can actually enjoy it.
If you think about it, most of our adult life we are rushed through our daily chores that we learn to put up with but never get to like. We spend 90% of our lifetime doing things we don't really care for and then reward ourselves with some mindless time-wasting fun like watching TV or shopping. It never occur to us that actually there can be pleasure found in following your daily routine - if only you could slow down and see it.
You could derive a tremendous kick from the most mundane pastimes like commuting, washing dishes or buying groceries if only you paused for a while and ponder over how grateful you should be that you're alive, healthy and have enough money and no war around you to actually just do it. Truly, truly, slowness IS happiness.
I am just back home from the Good Friday performance of Bach's Johanesspassion in the Westerkerk, the one with the unmarked grave of Rembrandt's. While listening to the music, I was wondering how it must be for Rembrandt's to hear it year in year out for centuries? Is it still moving or simply bothersome? Well, is lover and their son are also buried there so at least he has a good company.
It is also in this church where Queen Beatrix was married to her late ex-Nazi husband. Surely, Rembrandt's ghost was present at the wedding, what was his opinion of all the hoopla with state carriages and smoke bombs?
Then my attention switched to the austere interior of the church - it was purposely built for Protestant services, so there's bare minimum of decoration, what makes it nonetheless imposing. The majority of the audience - or rather congregation as it was in fact a service, not a secular music performance - were Dutch Protestant, I could spot them by their dull tousled hair and studiedly worn-out clothes. It has been more than 30 years since God officially left Holland, but the mentality conditioned by centuries of Calvinism still persists. In the peculiar lighting of the church, their faces looked different than in the street - as if the importance and gravity of the occasion had cast a different light on them.
And then I remembered that Anne Frank's house is right behind the church and most likely she was betrayed to the Nazis by one (or a few) of the Westerkerk's parishioners, the same people who must have many times attended that very Easter service. How deaf and hardened your heart must be that time after time it stays closed to the main message of the Gospel even further reinforced by Bach's genius! (Actually, I read that the real culprit is our "compartmentalised conscience".)
And still then my mind wandered on again to the Homomonument next to the church, a memorial for men and women persecuted for their homosexuality. For me, it's a glimpse of hope for the goodness of human nature, a proof that the humankind is still evolving.
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This piece never fails to get me totally undone: Bach - Johannes Passion - 1. Coro - Herr Unser Herrscher:
Stefan Gates' Cooking In Danger Zone is a wonderful programme. Neither judgemental, nor studiedly PC, it does not come across as adventure for the sake of shock effect. It's ideologically neutral yet very insightful and educational. All the trouble of passing judgements on people's dietary proclivities is smartly left up to the viewer.
According to Stefan himself, the programme's footage gets heavily edited. I noticed, for example, that the passage from his book where Cameroonian bushmeat cook Pascaline praises chimpanzee meat for its likeness to human flesh did not make it to the TV. Here's the extract:
‘What about gorilla?’
‘I’ve eaten it, and I serve it here, but I need the help of another person – I can’t do it all by myself,’ she shrugs. ‘My favourite is porcupine. And chimp.’ Blimey.
‘Why’s chimp so good?’
‘Because it almost smells like human flesh.’ Her brother tries to stop her talking, scared that she’s taking things too far, but she insists, ‘Yes, it’s true.’
I figure the above would be way too un-PC if revealed in public broadcast.
By the way, Stefan, they deceived you, sharks are fish and don't have lungs, it must have been something else you had there!
Rumour has it that her show producers go to great lengths to keep her butt out of picture as "it's way overeaten".
Say what you will, I prefer to think that on her shows Nigella is butt-naked. So it's all a conspiracy to keep the juiciest bits of her cooking from us. What a bummer.
At any rate, isn't it just lucky that Nigella inherited none of her Dad's looks and turned out more like the lush and delicious biblical seductress Esther?
He tried to defuse the situation and his speech was sincere, courageous and according to both White and Black observers best ever since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have A Dream address, no mean feat by any yardstick. It was reportedly well received by American intellectuals. Jon Stewart said that "Obama tried to speak to Americans as if they were adults." Truly so. However, it may have been too subtle and his argument too complex for the majority of the eligible voters and we know that subtlety and complexity does not work with the masses. They don't listen out whole speeches, they base their judgement on newspaper headlines and news channel soundbites.
I pray to God that Obama overcomes this blow and moves on to win both the Democrat nomination and the presidential election - he SEEMS to be the man America needs now to stir up the pernicious stalemate, but to quote the LA Times, "Obama in effect offered his candidacy as the next chapter in a story of racial tension and reconciliation that has unfolded since the country's founding."
We are yet to see how - if - Obama will come around but his chances are much slimmer than before. Hillary, you can pat yourself on the shoulder, or give yourself a noogie! We are one step closer to have another Douchebag vs. Turd Sandwich extravaganza of the US Preidential elections.
When your life is settled and your weekly schedule is busy, even more so if you married with kids, you probably only have time left for activity partners rather than friends. In other words, someone whose ideas of spending free time matches yours.
You still may be able to keep your friends you made before 30, provided that your lifestyles are not too different. You may even come across people you feel an instant attraction to - the way you became attracted to your friends when you were younger - but keeping yourself interested and involved in that kind of spontaneous friendship is another matter.
Or is it just me and my continuous intercontinental and intercultural relocations?
Funny to observe how the US primaries have degraded into a slap bitch rally. Barred from expressing real animosity the candidates resort to rather convoluted ways of delivering blows to each other - and victims fall shortly, but that's the calculated risk.
First, a senior member of Obama's campaign staff quits over her saying that Mrs. Clinton is a "monster who would stoop to anything". In fact, that's something so close to truth and possibly devastating to her chances as a presidential nominee that Obama was willing to sacrifice a Harvard professor just so the message would be heard by the masses. Just when the spin doctor-orchestrated tear-dropping routine made Hillary appear just a little bit more human, everybody is reminded that in fact she is not. Nice move, Barry!
Then, in a counter-blow, Hillary's campaign adviser quits over her remark that "Obama would not be ahead in the race for the White House if he were not black." That is an even meaner (well, you deal with the Clintons here, dude!) and much more substantial jab to Obama's post-identity positioning as neither Black nor White. That's the best way to steal the White votes - in a seemingly innocent and nonchalant manner.
I am pretty sure there will be more smiling-face kicks in the crotch in store for us as long as these primaries run. Two major predators have crossed their paths and those are paths of war!
Every now and then you can see Free Tibet! stickers on car bumpers. It's mostly run-down last-century Golfs and Astras owned by tree-hugging alternative types happy to latch on the popular campaign spearheaded by such political and intellectual giants as Richard Gere, Björk and Brad Pitt. Well, Tibetan Buddhism is so cool in certain (tree-hugging) circles and the Rolex-brandishing Dalai Lama, raised by a Nazi, is so deliciously ethnic and cute. A perfectly calculated market appeal on top of a formidable celbrity endorsement.
But the most off-putting is the hypocrisy of the ill-informed who find no problem with using dozens of Chinese-made products yet have objections to the Olympic Games being held in Beijing. Be consistent, halfwits, stop using ALL Chinese goods!
There has been a lot of laments and soul-searching both inside and outside Russia about the 'undemocratic' presidential elections.
But what were the alternatives? What if a Western-leaning liberal of the Yavlinsky kind was elected? Or another power-hungry oligarch keen on boosting his share of Soviet assets.
The nature of Russia's national political ethics is theocratic, very much along the lines of the Byzantine or Chinese Empires: the successor is chosen by his predecessor, or when the power is seized by the fittest. The theocratic system is only stable when power is transferred that way. Unfortunately, this system also requires a certain rigidity and information control to sustain. The very factors that ensure its survival in longer terms become its gravest downfalls: closed to criticism and gradual reform, it makes itself obsolete in the course of time, leaving no space for evolutionary changes more often than not it updates by way of revolutions and dramatic upheavals. If you analyse Russian history you can see that pattern in all of its major historical events.
One thing that Medvedev's rise to power assures is that Russia will continue on its way of becoming a kind of China: economically booming giant with limited freedom of expression. That means that it will be becoming more dominant and assertive economically and politically - something the Western powers hoped would never happen. The moment in the 90's to engage Russia in a more benign way was irrevocably lost - when Russians hoped to join the 'international community' and expected friendly assistance from the West, all they got were bad press and American spin doctors working hard to keep Russia down in the gutter. Now you will have to deal with Russia on her terms. Tough tits.
My last favourite architectural style is Art Deco which is essentially Art Nouveau traumatised by the experiences of WWI and massive industrialisation. Anything that came after that - institutionalised post-modern monstrosities commonly jumbled together under the monnicker of "International style" is the result of further traumatisation of the mass conscious by the horrors of WWII. Post-war architecture essentially represents caving in to the demands of speedy mass construction - obviously, you cannot make high-rise apartment blocks churned out by the thousand have the aesthetics of stately mansions of the horse and buggy days, or can you?
I'm romantic when it comes to architecture: I like beautiful buildings. Living in this day and age, it is hard to avoid being eclectic altogether, so it is sure no pain if a house recalls architectural influences from the past.
In my travels, two places earned my whole-hearted admiration for the aesthetical quality of modern time civil engineering: Morocco, particularly Marrakesh and Ouarzazate, and China. Both draw hugely on their cultural heritage, ending up having modern structures seamlessly blending with the historical parts. Both have employed their tradition-inspired modern styles on a large scale: in the whole city of Ouarzazate I saw no single building that falls out of the pattern.
Central planning must have done good to China: there are whole new development areas where modernity blends beautifully with tradition. The monochrome Ming palette greatly appeals to modern minimalist trends and Ming forms and shapes are easy to rendered with enforced concrete blocks.
A good example of the opposite is my dear Amsterdam. We have so many examples of fresh architectural graduates' eager ego-tripping in this city that now my sight simply ignores and skips those monstrosities.
At the risk of sounding an old-fashioned bore, I have to say that in my eyes nearly any piece of graphic arts (sculpture, painting, etc.) created after WWII represents an unsavoury mix of ego-bloating, blatant marketing and an exhausted artistic paradigm.
My idea about art is that it should contain either Beauty or Meaning. When there are both, we are dealing with Great Art. When there's neither - most likely it is a modern piece.
When photography became technologically established and wide-spread enough to serve to represent reality, graphic arts went through the Crisis of Representation. You did not need a painter to represent reality on a canvas any more - so art went down the slippery road of filling the missing parts of the aesthetic paradigm. Everything has been tried just for the sake of trying - including exhibiting air-tight containers with faeces in major museums like the MoMA, the Tate Gallery and the Centre Pompidou.
It proved abortive, if addictive: now you don't have to bother coming up with anything beautiful or meaningful as long as you give your pieces convoluted or mysteriously sounding names, best with no relation whatsoever to the subject. With the general rise of living standards, practically anyone, gifted or not, can go to an art school and now that modern art market is well established and is worth billions, worldwide art has become a market commodity. The only way to judge an artist is their market success which can always be expressed monetarily, and as we all know from the examples of Coca Cola and Microsoft's Windows anything we marketed can become a worldwide hit. Like the old saying goes, 'Millions and millions of flies like shit.' But modern art is the kind of shit that can give you an aura of lofty sophistication and trendiness. Propelled by the eternal human attributes of greed and vanity, modern art market is an indestructible profit-generating monster.
Now we know that all the billions poured into the "peace-making" Afghanistan campaign have not been wasted - there will be more and cheaper cocaine and heroine for street consumption in the First World. To quote the BBC, 'The growth in Afghanistan's opium crop began in earnest after the overthrow of the Taleban by US-led and Afghan forces in 2001.'
The "international community" can gleefully rub their hands together and go shopping for designer snorting and injecting paraphernalia. Considered the volume of trade - about 4 billion Euros a year in raw opiates only, which is surely worth tens of times more by the time it reaches retail dealers in the West, next thing we know the likes of Prada and Louis Vuitton will be coming up with patent leather and mahogany snorting kits.
Our boys in Afghanistan can be sure of the middle-class weekend cocaine users' support!
The ice-caps and glaciers melt, polar bears are stranded, Pacific islands are flooded and the media tries to talk us out from taking vacations abroad - and the Olympic torch starts its "highly symbolic" 136,000-km journey around the world.
