Part time job?

I know what I would like to do for a year now. I would like to teach a university course comparing Soviet, Nazi, and Allied propaganda films. The idea for the course would be to sift through the media material (films) to look for the common threads that are there in every piece of propaganda. If any universities are interested let me know. Book rights anyone?

Gilbert and Sullivan or the Comic Opera

I am going to lay the blame at Clara´s feet for this one. She got in the mood for listening to the Brecht´s The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) so I did the dirty work (got on my bike, went to the library, and checked it out for her on my free student account). While this work may seem remote and unknown, if you know The Doors song Whiskey Bar, then you are familiar with it.

Next thing you know I am suddenly in the mood for more of the same. However I didn´t know where to start. So I came back to something I had some knowledge about; the comic opera´s of Gilbert and Sullivan. Whether you know it or not you are probably familiar with their work as they are often seen in popular movies and such. Right now I am listening to the Pirates of Penzance and last week it was H.M.S. Pinafore. The humour is good and the music is fantastic. Next on the list is the Mikado.

What goes to Switzerland...

I think its amazing that the world has put up with these small tax havens for so long. Its really perfectly sad. Whenever we listened to Republicans talk about tax cuts and why it would be good to give more money to people who already had significant amounts of it, these recipients of tax cuts went and hid their money in these wonderful little countries whose banks and governments sealed their lips. Now it seems that this dirty little system could be under threat. The Swiss are upset that the US is putting them under some pressure to explain why they have been helping its citizen´s hide money that should have been taxed and gone back to the US government (think of all the infrastructure and health issues this money could have been spent on). Don´t get me wrong here I am not saying rich democrats haven´t done the same, just that its time to stop allowing little nations to hold the money.

Down with the Tax Haven culture!

Pirate Bay trial live

If you want and have a knowledge of Swedish, then you can use the svt.se web to listen to the Pirate Bay trial live. The prosecutor´s voice is so annoying it could make you cry and break down and confess to anything. As I sit here listening I am clinging to the hope that they actually pull of a win in this trial. We can go back to the notion of copyrights and all this and I still find myself wondering why a record label (a business) is able to own a song. More interestingly I wish we could confiscate the ipods of several famous musicians and determine where they got their music from. I am sure they are all perfect little angels.

Honestly, while I can´t say that downloading music is legal, I can on the other hand say that the model of selling music that the labels have stuck to is so out of date and inflated that its sad they have to resort to this kind of tactic to try to maintain their cultural hegemony. One might say the king is sitting loosely on the throne.

Open Letter to Rolf Anders

Rolf,

This week I have seen more of you then I have before. We sat in your office and at your dinner table looking at the photos you collected through the years. The thing that strikes me the most about these random moments captured by lens is two-fold: the smiles and the way that no matter what time period the photo is from you were always on a journey. Some were black and white, others full of color, and some slowly fading proving that even time can take these moments away. Some men live lives where they shelter themselves in a community and never venture far away from it. Others live their lives like that of Odysseus; always at sea looking for home and adventure. Looking at these pictures is seems you found that passage somewhere in between. I will never forget that moment just weeks ago when your daughter and I came to see you in the hospital and that even though you were in pain you still looked up at me and summoning all your strength you managed in English and with something of a smile "Nice to see you." You were a fighter, I don´t use that term lightly as it is laden with cliches and other images that don´t tell the real story behind everything you went through. I saw you again a few days after you closed your eyes for the last time. While I cannot say that you looked as handsome as you had the first time we met; just after Christmas at Adenauer Airport (I was nervous and I am sure you were as well), I can say that as I sat there I could see that the suffering was over. At the memorial ceremony there were over a hundred present and I sat there thinking to myself how strange it is that these people lighting candles; that they were able to know you and that I was now sentenced to only see you and them captured on those photos we found in your drawers and albums. They cried because they knew you and knew what they had lost when they had lost you; a friendship and more importantly a friend. I cried because I had lost a person who I would never have a chance to befriend. I don´t think you ever expected to create the chain of events that brought me to where I am now. I will remember you and these pictures will tell stories that even your grandkids will laugh and smile about.

Your soon to be son-in-law,

Aron