TS - The World

see my comment to the "Schäuble Unser" post... now you know what my opinion about the CDU is...

Dear Children,

The good Lord sees everything,
The good Lord hears everything,
The good Lord knows everything,
Thus let us pray together:

Our Father in the wheelchair,
hallowed be your name,
May your fourth reich come.
Your will be done,
in foreign and domestic affairs.
Give us today our daily trojan horse,
and always suppose our guilt,
as we denounce
those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
but deliver us from evil.
For our genetic data
and the surveillance state
and data retention are yours
now and for ever.

Amen.



I so love it!

Last night was the TV Debate between the "chancellor candidates" Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Angela Merkel. Why the quotation marks? Let's be honest: Merkel will become chancellor again since Steini doesn't really have a chance of becoming it with approval ratings around 20-25% for his party. But this is not what this blog will be about.

After the debate I switched to ARD to Anne Will (wow, I do actually watch not only private tv stations). It was a really good hour I had watching the program since this time not the two sleeping pills of chancellor candidates were arguing but rather journalists and two politicians (Klaus Wowereit and Edmund Stoiber). Anne Will's team also put together a fictional debate between Stoiber and Wowereit. In the clip show they had a part of one of Stoiber's talks in which he mentioned mandatory language tests for children before they enter school.

Surprisingly, all of the big five parties, except Die Linke, supports the idea. I just wonder why it hasn't been realized in most of the states (I think NRW, Hesse and Bavaria are the only ones with such a system). I agree that it is very difficult to determine the performance of children in various situations since some children just don't like to talk in other places apart from home. However, since I dealt with a study about the success of Hauptschüler (children of our lowest education level) it becomes apparent what kind of issue these children have: lack of language competency. Many of them are immigrants and 20% of them don't speak German at home. Those are the ones with the biggest problems. It is also proven that your language competency (especially grammar and spelling) is a major factor in your future (no matter what branch of your career). If your language is good your chances in life become much higher.

Now wouldn't these language tests be helpful, especially for immigrant children who have barely been in Germany for a year or so and are required to understand lessons in German completely if they don't want to fail in school? Don't get me wrong: I don't want these people out of the country. Yet, I think aid programs would be really good for them: send them to language school for a year and then get them into school. In my opinion this would significantly decrease risks of them failing at schools and later having to choose the lowest education level and not have any chances in life. I think it's not about getting rid of these children or cast them out from our education. It is about giving them a real chance in life, a postponed one, but a much better chance than what they might face if it wasn't for such a test.

I don't know if the concept is meant for all children (also non-immigrant children). I am against formal tests where these children would be in a room with a person and has to talk to them. This would just put them under pressure and might result in more failings. However, I am for some sort of evaluation by educators and that they should document critical cases. Seemingly, this is the case in most states already and it is also the main criticism against such a formal test. I just wonder: why then do we still have so many children who are stuck on the lowest education level because somebody (whether it be the parents or educators) missed to teach them a good language early on in life...

Religious who might fear being trampled all over themselves: don't read it or argue reasonably, as I will probably fail to do so again ;)

Last night I saw two documentaries about 9/11... more or less. One of them was about fates of victims, the other focused more on the terrorists and their "CV". The first one was rather touching for a specific reason. They were talking about how people tried to escape the flames: by jumping out of the window. And some of the relatives even believed for some time that they would surely come to hell, since they committed suicide by jumping out of the window.

You know, I don't doubt that humankind was horrible even before religion arrived on this planet - if there was such a time (Faithful churchgoers probably doubt it). The issue I have is: did religion make matters better or worse? I think it's the latter.

What has religion done so far? Its purpose is probably to console people and show them the way to eternal salvation and happiness. Others say they console people concerning the evil of the world... which religions have caused. I wouldn't go as entirely supporting the second view but there's something to it. Despite humanitarian aids and all the great help some people give religion has also caused an incredible amount of pain and suffering: you think people are witches? Just burn 'em. Somebody says the earth isn't flat? HERESY! BURN HIM! Some people don't agree with you? Bur... no, just kill them all and start an entire crusade. To hell with those nonbelievers. Hell, those buggers even form a very powerful lobby in the US right now. Before every election Democrats have to pay attention that they won't completely endorse marriage for homosexuals or their Christian voters will turn their back on them.

Their missionaries complain about not being heard in other countries or even at home. Hello??? You are homophobes if you don't want to allow homosexuals their equal right. And some even say that gender is predetermined. Well, hurrah: What will you tell all of the intersexuals/hermaphrodites? "Your gender is pretermined, but God wasn't so sure about you... sorry"? I'm sick and tired of people saying "every challenge is a challenge from God and will help you to become a better human being". Great. I wish for these people that the Hindus or Buddhas (not sure which one of them it is) are right: That you will be reborn, preferrably as a rat that will have meds be tested on them or as a person in Africa who has to starve for days just to be able to drink dirty water after that or the most disgusting food just to fill a little part of your stomach.

But I'm getting a "little bit" off topic. Is religion all bad? NO!! Every religion probably has good teachings. However, there are also bad ones. "Kill/Cast out nonbelievers". Great. Teaching tolerance on one side and stating this on the other... ouch. But anyway, there are many great Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus etc. you name it. Fortunately, they skip the bad parts or take them as bad examples (even if the bad example comes from the Almighty himself), but there are also people who read and follow all of the teachings... or their interpretation... even though "cast out the nonbelievers" seems pretty clear to me. Focusing on Christianity: Sure, Jesus reversed most of the bad stuff and taught everlasting love. But there are soooo many people who rather stick to the Old Testament, sometimes also because they don't believe that that particular Jesus was the Christ.

Are they at fault? Hard to say... Some say karma is a b****. In this case you could say faith is a b****. You will not know before death (or you still won't know then) or God comes to you during life and gives you assignments for life or you just think that God comes to you despite it being just a figment of your imagination. Who knows. Anyway, the innocent and peaceful faithful one are then the ones who worry. Why did it have to come to the following sentence (or something like it): "My husband jumped out of the window. It made me sad for a long time since suicidal ones will surely come to hell, won't they?" This made me really sad. The woman and her family were terrified that they won't see their beloved one again. Whose fault is it? The preachers? The bible says nothing about suicide. Just murder (a planned taking of life... which kind of is suicide). Is it the preachers' fault since they teach that suicide is murder or is it religion's fault (which might have been invented by preachers) or God's fault because he missed to establish a widely-known distinction between different types of suicide? In the case of 9/11: Either you burn (or suffocate) to death or you jump. What would you choose? Of course, for some people there's always hope that they will be saved but in some cases it was already too late (despite not knowing that the towers would just crash). Either you suffocate to death or you're dead within 10 seconds in which you can mentally say good bye to your loved ones and God and then die without any physical pain or you can suffocate to death trying to think of your loved ones while fighting for air.

Anyway, it really shocked me. This young woman who just had to face the death of her husband now pondered whether he jumped. Because if he jumped he'd surely be in hell. In my opinion this woman has an extremely strong will. This double burden must have been horrible. Fortunately she doesn't fear her husband being in hell anymore since she hopes for God to be just and that He will see that those people who jumped only had two choices.

Indeed, religion is a really difficult topic but sometimes I really hoped some verses would have never made their way into the scriptures or at least clarified things more. Having faith but still having to interpret God's words, the preacher's words and your own thoughts can be too much for some.

Am I sorry for this blog? No. I just wish that religion could accomplish what it was REALLY meant to be (hopefully): to spread peace and help people accomplish a good life and salvation. But as Einstein said: Everything is relative, so is the term "good". However, I doubt we will ever have peace with religions on this earth since there are too many fundamentalists who really believe that nonbelievers must die and perish in hell. If God really exists this is my prayer for the world: Please make so people in bad situations won't give into the offers of fundamentalists and terrorists, please help us to establish peace among your people and please console those who fear hell because of suicide or other reasons. This earth is by far the most beautiful planet in the solar system. It doesn't deserve to be destroyed by blinded people or filled with people who are sad because they have to fear punishment, either for themselves or their loved ones. Thank you!

Finally... no, what is finally? Am I happy with the results of last week's state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Saarland. Partly.

Why I'm not happy:
- CDU is still the strongest party in all three states
- the Pirate Party only got 1.7% of the votes in Saxony

Why I'm happy:
- Thomas Jurk, top candidate of the SPD, resigned
- Dieter Althaus, FORMER Minister-President of Thuringia, resigned
- the Pirate Party doubled their votes compared to the election of the European Parliament.

What makes me most happy is that Dieter Althaus finally resigned. Why am I so mean, you ask? Well, think about the following facts:

He had to pay 33.000€ to the widower of the woman that died in a crash with Althaus. Is this just the usual favoring of famous people? A life is worth 33.000€??? Are you kidding me? What can this money buy? A nice tombstone, grave and the fees for the grave for the next 20 years? A child lost her mother and a father lost his wife in a crash that Althaus was responsible for. Indeed, it was only negligent killing, but hey. He still killed the woman.

Now, I guess we're used to "normal" people getting "paid" incredibly little money in the case of death, but the way Althaus staged his recovery, his prayers for the family and everything REALLY PISSED ME OFF!!! Instead of giving interviews to local and SERIOUS newspapers he chose the worst broadsheet he could: BILD. If an American reads it: Compare it with the crap "news" station Fox News. This way he tried for a fast political recovery, too. He wanted to be seen as a person who feels very sorry and who has learnt so much from it. What is there to learn? Can anyone tell me? How to stage a political comeback? How not to ski? How to have feelings at all? I don't know.

All I know is that I was relieved when I heard of his resignation.