heavenly waves

incredible photos from midan tahrir

The New Yorker's Photo Booth section is always featuring great pictures. Check out this article published 2/4/2011: Postcard from Egypt.

berlin as seen from a balcony

it breaks my heart

(too bad it's only part of the song, but the animation is so sweet.)

vernissage

galerie kurt im hirsch

it shall not be forgotten

66 years ago the concentration camp auschwitz was liberated by the red army.

so in love

...with this rocker by charles and ray eames

this one belongs to my friend anne, who lives in this amazing loft in ghent and has a passion for design.
this chair is one of the few design pieces i'd really be willing to pay a lot of money for.

keys

oh belgium

ghent

mijn fiets heeft er een hekel aan

neulich in der sbahn

holy night at c's

c wanted to have this big christmas eve dinner, but unfortunately her parents, uncle, aunt and 3 cousins weren't able to make it, because their flights were cancelled. so in the end it was just three of us. c was very disappointed but we ended up having a really great dinner anyway. i must say it was probably one of the most relaxed christmas dinners so far and i kind of like the idea of celebrating christmas with friends or maybe a mixed group of friends and family.

our menu:
vegan pumpkin soup
lamb's lettuce with fried pear, walnuts and balsamic vinegar
goose (or veggie schnitzel), mashed potatoes with garlic and red cabbage mixed with chopped chestnut
vanilla ice cream
cheese
(we were not able to eat the last two courses though...)

new discovery

my friend nele showed me this show last night. sarah haskins is absolutely funny! nele and i were wondering why there don't seem to be any german feminist comedians or why german feminists seem to have no sense of humor, but seem to be extremely bitter. sarah's analysis and commentary on gender roles as shown on tv ads is just brilliant! too bad she quit the show. her successor erin gibson's show modern lady is pretty funny as well. you should check it out! tv definitely needs more chicks like these two!

why philosophy?

i just love the ny times!
great photos and statements of contemporary philosophers. please pay attention to zizek's statement!

christmas

every single year the christmas industry seems to be flooding our shops earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier.

it’s a scheme!!! and it’s annoying as hell! who wants to eat chistmas cookies in june or drink mulled wine in august? nor do i want to see christmas lights or decoration before the 24th of december. ok, i might be a hater! yes, i do hate christmas! i am a harmless version of the grinch, slightly less green, but strangely enough with rudolph’s red nose when it’s too cold outside. and no, it’s not the eggnog that makes it red. as if i would drink eggnog, yuck!

anyhow, most of my friends are non-practicing christians. some of them say they are practicing. they want to get or have already gotten married in church but that seems to be one of the only moments in their adult lives they enter a church. the other moments will probably be funeral services, maybe even only their own ones. but when it comes to christmas they all have the urge to celebrate the birth of jesus christ. some of them get the urge to donate money to charities, cause that’s what good christians do…remember: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself! but where is that love during the rest of the year? don’t get me wrong, this is not meant to be an indictment against christians. no christian bashing intended, muskelpferd! non-believers also use only the holiday season as an opportunity to donate or for doing good deeds.

i was raised an atheist, well at least i was raised by atheists. my mother wasn’t baptized. her father was a true socialist. he was even buried at the friedrichsfelde central cemetery, close to the memorial to the socialists.

my father on the other hand was raised by a protestant mother and an atheist father. my grandfather would drop her off at sunday service and pick her up afterwards, but would never enter the church. my father confirmed his faith when he was 14 but later apostatized.

anyhow, i know we all celebrate christmas, because it’s a tradition in western society. but to me this whole tradition seems kind of meaningless. we are supposed to celebrate the birth of the messiah! but i don’t believe in that messiah! i might constantly be going back and forth considering myself an agnostic or whatever, but i am fairly sure that i do not believe in jesus christ. the only thing i’m not a hundred percent sure of is, if there is a higher force or a surpreme being. i mean, who am i to know, right?

christmas with my family is just getting together and having dinner and exchanging presents of course. for a few years, it was just mom, dad and me hanging together. my brother, his wife and their children wanted to celebrate on their own. so my dad and i rented a few dvds. after dinner we watched them and my mom would fall asleep. usually during the first one. that’s kind of a tradition, i guess … anyhow, it could have been just some other sunday or saturday night, where i would go over there. nothing special. after dinner i usually have drinks with some of my friends.

in 1998 i celebrated christmas in the us with my host family. that was the first time i was not with my family. two years ago i was israel visiting my boyfriend at that time. he is jewish but wanted to go to church with me! that was kind of a funny thought, cause i’ve never been at a christmas service. but we didn’t do the whole christmas thing and celebrated chanukah instead. and you know what, i didn’t miss a thing!

this year will be the first time i will be in berlin but not celebrating with my family. my parents are going to celebrate with my brother’s family. but i think i can predict the future and that’s the reason i’m not going with them. oh no, bad case of a delusion of grandeur!

nonetheless i decided to be with friends, because - and now listen to this - even though i’m not a fan of christmas, i don’t want to be alone on christmas eve!!! thinking everybody else is with people they love makes me scared of being home alone. so is this the point of christmas? when celebrating with people you love, it makes you feel appreciated and shows you how good life can be and when alone, you are a sad, sad human being? strange thing is though, that suicide rates don’t increase during the holiday season … so i guess that thesis is just invalid.

anyhow, get through it and get good presents at least. you deserve it after having to listen to all these corny and annoying christmas songs and stuffing your body with a monthly amount of food in just three days!

saturday morning

deftones 12/2/2010

brrrrr even colder

this must be some sort of a joke!

low - point of disgust

it's one of these days, where you ask yourself, why the hell did you even get out of bed? it's freezing outside. with every step you make you could break your neck, cause the ground is so slippery. instead of doing something useful like reading the books you need to read for your exams, you just lie on your bed and watch mindless tv-shows or keep yourself occupied with other useless crap. the worst part about it, you can't even convince yourself that you are just trying to relax, cause with every minute that passes you feel more tired and exhausted. so why can't you make yourself get up and do something???
anyhow, i just heard this song and i think it really captures my mood today. and the video is just beautiful.

brrrrrrr cold

whatever happened...

…to suicide?!

it is interesting how the perception of suicide has changed throughout the course of history, well in some ways at least.

while studying for one of my exams i stumbled upon two speeches supposedly held by eleazar ben yair, the leader of the sicarii during the siege of masada. he held these in order to convince his fellow sicarii to commit collective suicide.

he argued that suicide is the right thing for them to do, because they have sinned and brought a lot of anguish upon their fellow countrymen. it is also better to die as a free man than live in slavery.

it seems to have been a theme for ancient historians to tell about mass suicides during times of war. in order to escape slavery, imprisonment, punishment or murder by the opponent, people have committed suicide and still do.

among ancient historians suicide seems to have been regarded as a brave and heroic act. the protagonists showed how much they valued their freedom, faith and honor.

the abrahamic religions condemn suicide as a highly sinful act, an act against god. one of the reasons they condemn it, is that god is the one who determines how long one lives and not the human being. christianity was pretty bias for a while. though suicide was prohibited, martyrdom was admissible for quite some time!

many philosophical schools have strongly opposed suicide. some have made exceptions for certain reasons. plato for example, whom flavius josephus must have read when he wrote the speeches for eleazar ben yair, generally disapproved of the act, but accepted it, if the individual in question had been part of wrongful doing.

the views on suicide of philosophical schools have obviously undergone some change in the last centuries. there have always been schools, e.g. the stoics, who have permitted suicide.

the question still is, is it just or unjust? is life sacred, making suicide morally wrong? is it allowed under certain circumstances to kill oneself? do we have a right to self-determination? is suicide wrong because killing is generally wrong?

according to the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy it is - among other things - personal feelings that influence modern perception of suicide as well as the ideas of the roles we are supposed to play in society. so if a family member does it, it is considered to be harmful to the other members of the family and is thus wrong!

a person close to me has seriously attempted to commit suicide two or three times minimum. x suggested to me that there have been more attempts and that those were no cries for help. x also told me that he/she did not think about the consequences these attempts could have nor how it would affect those close by, how it would change their lives forever, how they would never stop worrying that it might happen again for the rest of their or x’s life.

nowadays it is often seen as a cowardly act, the most egotistical thing a person can do. the person, who chooses to kill her/himself is considered to be running away from life’s challenges. the people, who are left behind are often left behind with nothing but emptiness or shock and guilt. they feel forsaken.

we also judge suicide on different grounds. someone, who has been terminally ill and committed suicide will be seen in a different way as someone, who’s suffered from depression. in the first case the people left behind will sometimes not even describe it as a suicide.

but what is suicide? the encyclopedia states, that an act can only be classified as suicide if it is completely intentional. though it must not result in death necessarily.

there are of course different motives for choosing to kill oneself. i found it very interesting, that among others one motive is revenge! but isn’t revenge only fulfilling when one can undergo this feeling? and considering one doesn’t believe in afterlife choosing death out of revenge seems kind of pointless. it shows how little we understand about death and its finality.

almost winter

my fogged kitchen window. thursday it is supposed to be snowing!