Shuarian’s Weblog

That’s exactly how I felt during today’s exam in mathematics….

…and also very well known for their musical skills and taste. Ehm, well, maybe not so much. But thanks to Google Video, this may finally change. At least the bit about being well known.

I Wanna Love You Tender

A silly music video from Finland. The actual song is rather cheesy, but my favourite part is undoubtedly the dancing performance of the backup singers/dancers.

(Thanks to grumpygamer.com)

The weather got much better, finally. During the day, it gets around 20 degrees Celsius (circa 70 degrees Fahrenheit), which is nice. Still, being someone who likes warm weather, I hope it gets warmer soon. At least it’s warm enough for other people to join Patrick and me at playing football (soccer) now. On the downside, I realise I’m far away from my top condition. Oh well, this will surely improve over time, and I’m looking forward to my first bicycle tour of the year anytime soon.

Over the weekend, I had to do some labour in our garden. It’s not exactly an activity I’m terribly fond of. Still, it was nice enough to be outside and enjoy the weather a bit, and physical work can give a certain sense of satisfaction. I rewarded myself by picking some flowers, as can be seen on the photo.

The vase is one of the tea glasses I’ve bought in Turkey. They are very popular throughout the Middle East - at least the parts I know. I really like to drink tea from them, as it reminds me of Syria (and Turkey, obviously). There, they always serve tea super hot. Apart from that, I think my tea glasses are also great for wine and fruit juice!

I really wanted to write an entry for Easter. However, as happens so often, events in real life interfered. I’ll make good for it with many colourful pictures in this post! And well, the reason for the delay is simple:

La commedia italiana

Italy held general elections on April 9 and April 10, the weekend before Easter. The outcome was very close, and due to different polls, recounting and legal actions, the final result was long disputed. As I preferred to be careful, I kept back from writing anything about it. Due to a court ruling, the final standings of the elections are now official: Romano Prodi’s center-left coalition, L’Unione, has won the election, and achieved a majority of seats in both chambers of the Italian parliament. As a result, Romano Prodi will become new Prime Minister of Italy.

Of course, he’ll face quite a hard and difficult challenge, and has to prove himself able to control, lead and manage the country. Prodi certainly has very good credentials - he already was Prime Minister of Italy from 1996 to 1998, and served as President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004 (see the corresponding article on Wikipedia). Yet still, his coalition has only a narrow lead in the parliament, and is made up of not less than eleven different parties. Even though most of them are smaller and/or regional parties, their votes are very important. In addition, the dire situation in Italy calls for some unpopular steps, and it remains to be seen how well the coalition can balance the different partial interests of its members. It will be critical for the Union to find a role beyond being the anti-Berlusconi coalition.

In the end, the real good news is not only the victory of Prodi, but also the defeat of now-former PM Silvio Berlusconi:

There are numerous reasons I’m glad that this questionable gentleman from the above picture is no longer in charge of Italy. For starters, besides having been Prime Minster, he’s the richest Italian citizen. It’s not clear where his initial capital for his investments came from. He controls as good as all non state-run television networks, and as PM had direct influence on the state-owned stations. He also owns other media companies, such as newspapers. He, his confidants and his company have been subject to many legal scrutinies, some of which had to be closed due to new laws he established while in power. As if that isn’t enough, he also made several sexist and racist remarks, ruined the Italian economy, privileged his companies on state contracts, sent Italian troops to Iraq and generally did a poor job on governing the country.

Brief Outlook

Despite his defeat, Berlusconi hasn’t yet conceded. He tries every possible way of prolonging the final displacement of his government, and thus keeps the commedia (comedy) going. However, one should not underestimate his will for power, and his ability to influence the Italian people. Else it wouldn’t have been such a close race.

This all makes it quite clear that Berlusconi wants to attack the credibility of Prodi and Prodi’s victory; since the final decision was made by a court, he’s probably working on his own version of the Dolchstosslegende. His continuous fight is not only an attack against the stability of Prodi’s L’Unione, but also an attempt to strengthen his leadership within the center-right Casa delle Liberta coalition.

Although Berlusconi’s own party, Forza Italia, remains the strongest faction in that coalition, the Alleanza Nazionale has gained influence, and may challenge the position of Berlusconi. This holds especially true should the new government of Prodi last longer than two years, as this would make Berlusconi quite old for the job. And without him, Forza Italia may be in a weak position to hold its current electoral share.

Another important factor is the stability and unity of Prodi’s government, as mentioned before. While some parties may leave his coalition, I also don’t want to rule out the Unione dei Democratici Cristiani (UDC) leaving Berlusconi’s coalition, which would move the Casa delle Liberta further right and cost them more votes than the relatively small size of the UDC would imply. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that the UDC was the first party of Berlusconi’s coalition to accept Prodi’s victory.

Swiss-Italian Easter

Staying on topic of the actual title, I had a nice Easter time, with much chocolate.

Apart from the traditional painting of eggs (and the almost mandatory subsequent Eiertütschen [Link leads to the German Wikipedia]) and the consumption of much chocolate, our family also observed some Italian traditions:

The colomba pasquale is a typical ‘cake’ for Easter, available in different sizes and tastes. ‘Pasquale’ refers to Easter (Pasqua), while a ‘colomba’ is a white dove (hence the form), and probably should remind us of some peaceful message for Easter. More recently, big chocolate eggs have also become popular:

As usual for Italy, it looks a bit kitschy. Oh well, I guess people just like to use one of the most important Christian holidays as an opportunity for eating chocolate. Who am I to blame them for that :-)

For what it’s worth: I’m a considerate inventor

Yet another funny but senseless personality test. I’ll try to write more insightful entries over the next few days. However, I can’t promise anything. I’m busy moving to a new room, and even may have no Net access for some days. Additionally, I face six exams over the next two weeks. Among them are two rather tough ones in national economy and mathematics, so I better be prepared :-)

Considerate Inventor

More details about my results

Weblog: Small changes

Oh, I’ve also made some small changes to the blog over the last days. This column is now a bit wider, and I’ve consolidated the links.

I don’t watch much TV, on average about four to five hours a week. Regular programmes I watch include Mit offenen Karten on ARTE, Harald Schmidt on ARD, and The Daily Show Global Edition on CNNi. The rest of my TV viewing consists of several news programmes as well as some documentaries and/or good movies.

From time to time, I also end up watching TV to relax a bit. I then randomly switch through different stations until something catches my interest. Which hardly ever is the case, given the quality of your average TV show. Here’s a short, irrelevant and meaningless overview over the latest three shows I’ve randomly dug up:

SF 1: Sternstunde Philosophie

SF is the state-owned TV station of Switzerland. Yes, it imaginatively stands for Schweizer Fernsehen - Swiss Television. The weekly Sternstunde Philosophie show invites guests from different fields (such as politics, art, science and economy) for discussions covering philosophical and cultural issues. The program airs every Sunday at 11.00 AM on SF 1. Needless to say, such a programme slot is rather unlucky.

The programme I saw featured Bundesrat Pascal Couchepin, Councillor of the Swiss Federal Council. I’ve only catched the last few minutes, so I can’t discuss all that much. Instead, I present two comments which stroke me as being particularly interesting. They are translated freely and solely from memory. Don’t expect too much accuracy, and don’t use it for your diploma thesis :-)

From time to time, the state has to show his authority, his glamour. Even in democracies, people need traditions, ceremonies. The government, apart from its duty towards its citizens, has an own existence and an own agenda. Because a state is more than the sum of its citizens. And this difference (note: between the state’s will and the will of the state’s citizens) is the common welfare, which the state has to uphold against the self-interest of individual citizens.

A very interesting comment, which at first almost looks a bit socialistic (Pascal Couchepin is a member of the Free Democratic Party, a ‘free market liberal party’ [Quote Wikipedia]), but on a second thought, it might rather reveal a classic Leviathan-authoritarianism.

Today, politics is like photos, instead of cinema. It concerns itself only with temporary, isolated snap-shots (German: Momentaufnahmen) and doesn’t care about coherency and the big picture anymore.

Again, a very interesting point, and one I actually do support. However, it has become trendy to mourn about this, which makes it an easy and popular statement to say. Still, it’s a nice analogy. Many politicians appear to think too much about re-election; they seem to develop rather partial and cost-conscious views. The German word Tunnelblick fits quite nicely here. Where is their broader vision? To they pursue any bigger strategy?

MTV: Dating Shows

On to our next contestant, MTV. What can I say, I normally don’t watch MTV. I can’t stand its shows, nor do I like most of the music it plays. Still, at times I watch some of their shows for a short time - in German, you say ‘zapping’ for the fast and aimless switching between different TV stations. I had the fortune (…) to see a new show. The meaning of the word awful has now a whole new dimension. From what I’ve been able to gather during the five minutes I’ve seen, some guy apparently meets three mothers. He talks with them and then decides which of their daughters he wants to date. It’s rather ’special’ (read: embarrassing) to see how the mothers are trying to sell their daughters. However, the highlight definitely was the following question: ‘How does your daughter look? I mean, if she were a car, how would you describe her?’. Eek! I know, these shows are probably (well… hopefully, for the sake of the overall intelligence of the human race) heavily scripted, but please? Although, I guess it is a step away from that dating show in which they let people search through other people’s rooms. Unfortunately, that step isn’t necessarily in the right direction. Goodbye, MTV.

ZDF: Veronica Mars

And hello ZDF, a state-owned TV station from Germany. I mainly watch ZDF because of its fine documentaries and reportages, but as above, recently turned them on randomly. They were showing a new series, called Veronica Mars. It actually looks not all that bad. Some shots actually have a Twin Peakesque flair to them. Also, the female main character is not only clever (and even slightly geeky) but also strong without having to do any martial arts fights against bad guys (read: Buffy, a terrible show). It’s hard to judge from only one episode, but there seems to be some decent character development and background, too. However, the world somehow appears too slick and polished for my taste, and too much geared towards teenagers. Besides, I hardly follow TV series anyway. Thus, while I probably even would have time for watching the weekly episodes, it’s just too much effort for something not really worth it.

Conclusion

Wow, I’ve come to an end. Can you tell nothing much interesting has happened during the last few days? As far as conclusions go, I’ll try to read more books. He. I’ll also try to view ‘Sternstunde Philosophie’ frequently. It has a bad slot, but luckily, SF 1 offers some shows as online streams. MTV has lost it for me (nothing new there), while ZDF did neither bad nor good, so I’ll probably just stick to their documentaries.

This is a photo I took outside our house on Monday. It shows how everything was ready for spring and warmer temperatures, how flowers started to bloom and flourish… until the Unspring appeared, and with him came the snow.

When looking at this picture, I feel a bit melancholic. Many people think that melancholy is the same as sadness or bitterness, but it is not. A sad person sees nothing beautiful. A cynic destroys beauty with his cynicism. But a melancholic person sees beauty even on sad days, but knows he can’t possess it, and understands how the moment will end. The challenge of life is to appreciate it despite, or even because of, its perishability (German: Vergänglichkeit).

Back on topic, I guess the French word tristesse is actually better in describing the photo, though.

Outlook

To end this entry in a more cheerful mood, the weather actually got better today. And the outlook is quite fine for Easter, too. It still doesn’t feel springish at the moment, but maybe this will change soon. There’s always hope.