Articles about General Events
Monday, January 11, 2010
Ruhr.2010 - European Capital of Culture for one Year
Some people in North Rhine-Westphalia celebrated New Year’s Eve at a former industrial plant, because the Ruhr Area is European Capital of Culture this year. This is—if I know it right—the first time that a whole region (it was registered as Essen + Ruhr Area) receives the title. Essen and Ruhr Area won the competition against some other cities, including other cities in North Rhine-Westphalia like Cologne.
Industry in Ruhr District
There was a lot of heavy industry in Ruhr Area, which means they have some problems with regard to unemployment nowadays. Still, there are some companies mining coal, but German coal is too expensive for the world market, so it has to be subsidized by the state.
This however will lead to even more problems in the future, not only in North Rhine-Westphalia: If the state spends money on outdated technology instead of using it for the future, then Germany will use its leading position in the technology market.
However, you should not reduce the Ruhr District on heavy industry only. When I talked to a girl from there (she by the way was even from Essen), she protested that the area was not as bad as people think about it.
Ruhr Citizens proud of it?
However, it seems like many Ruhr people are proud of their region and the heavy industry. As already said they even celebrated in a former industry plant, the Zeche Zollverein (Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex). There have been 100.000 people each day at the celebration on January 9 and 10.
Press photo taken by Manfred Vollmer
The German singer and songwriter Grönemeyer even wrote a song for the Ruhr Area. He sings about the typical character of people living in this area, however this is of course not true for everybody. Though, there might be special attitudes in different regions.
European Capital of Culture
It seems to be their way to show excitement about the new title, even though it does not change anything. Would it not have been the same region even if it was not called European Capital of Culture now? There would have been the same places, there would have been the same sights and there would have been the same people.
The only difference seems to be, there are a lot o parties these days over there and government has to pay for it. Federal government pays 17 million, state North Rhine-Westphalia and Regionalverband Ruhr (regional association Ruhr) each 12 million, and the town Essen 6 million Euro. There are some more public institutions and a lot of private sponsors.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Goals for 2010
Many people have personal goals for 2010 which they already forget the next day. I have some goals for this blog which I really want to reach in 2010:
- new design: I want to create a new design which looks more modern and not so much blog-like anymore. Instead, I want to focus on usability and encourage users to read some more articles to find additional information easily. I will work on further plans for this
- better articles: This is like the standard aim of everybody - and it is usually not reached. I want to leave the news paper style behind and reach my own parlance
- more extensive articles: Articles should be longer and include rather a whole overview instead of only daily news. This means if there is a special event, I might wait some days until I publish an article about it, to gather more information before.
- focus on politics? I am wondering if I should focus on politics and similar topics (e.g. economy). I do not know much about sports and I do not watch most events. Thinking about the past few months, I think the ski jumping events these days are the only sports I have been watching.
Now you are asked!
Please comment: What do you like about the current blog, what should be changed?
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Annual Reviews for 2009
As soon as the year is ending, many TV shows and news paper articles are dealing with a retroperspective of all events of the past year. Depending on the media there are of course different types of reviews with different focus. Private TV stations concentrate on emotions, reputable news papers put their focus on political and economical events and public-law TV stations are somewhere between.
Within the next few days I want to write my own review of 2009's events, hopefully somewhat different to all other reviews. The most important difference might already be the language, since I am authoring in English, but I also would like to find a different point-of-view than most media.
I just try to inform you about my plans, because it could take somewhat longer than usually.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas
As you probably know reading this blog, Germany is a mostly Christian region where Christmas is celebrated. The Christian tradition is not so important anymore, but people still meet to eat together and talk. Of course, also presents are exchanged, which gives Christmas in the eyes of critics a commercial atmosphere.
Due to the de-religionization of Christmas, other regions also adopt and celebrate either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I heard in a German TV show that e.g. Japanese people like to celebrate Christmas.
Independant of whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope you have a nice day, and since you are interested in Germany you might - even if not celebrating Christmas today or tomorrow - try to calm down a bit from daily work.
People seem to be busy all the time if you're watching the streets
Additional information
In case you're interested in Christmas days in Germany, you might want to read a small article at about.com about Celebrating Christmas in Germany.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Von der Leyen puts Rammstein's new Album on Index
I think Misses von der Leyen will have more and more enemies in the future. Not only do most information scientists hate her, but now she also led to the indexing of Rammstein's new album Liebe ist für alle da (love is there for everybody).
What does indexing mean in Germany?
The album will not be allowed to be available in public and nobody under 18 is allowed to possess it. Moreover, it is not allowed to play the songs in public. Therefore, it might only be sold to people who are at least 18 years old and tell the clerk: "Hey, you must have the new Rammstein album, don't you? I want to buy it" The clerk will then get it from below the table or somewhere different.
Why is it put on the index?
Ursula von der Leyen has a problem with one song about sexual violence (either SM or rape, you could interpret both I think) and one image on which a girl gets some slaps on the ass.
Wow, ain't this really bad?
Of course, this might be something that is not good in the eyes of everybody. However, you have to know what other lyrics are allowed in Germany. We have a lot of Gangster-rappers here singing about killing other people, fucking their mothers and raping sluts.
What von der Leyen now tries to do is playing the cultural saviour. She wants to protect us all from harmful content as if we were not able to choose ourselves what is good for us and what is not. The problem in my eyes no is: The image with which she has a problem is in the jewel case and you can only listen to the songs if you bought them. I do not understand why there is not only a restriction to people who are at least 18 years old then.
Von der Leyen: a show-off
There once was a report on TV about von der Leyen which came to the conclusion that she is always trying to put herself in front of everything. She wants to be seen and she wants to be known. Talking about her role as Family Minister, she once also told wrong data and started talking about it before others could.
I do not know why other people apart from information scientists (she is the one who is demanding internet censorship in Germany) have not had any problems with her, yet. However, she now might get problems all over the world, because Rammstein is a really widely known band.