What are Germans talking about?
- Hemorrhaging Money for Homeland Security, a report on the Spiegel Online website reads, “Fear can be a lucrative business. That, at least, is what American companies selling security gadgets are finding out as the US government continues to spend billions of dollars on a variety of different Homeland Security programs. The only problem? Most of them are useless.” I couldn’t agree more.
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EU Summit Collapse is ‘Historic Failure’, another Spiegel Online report begins, “With France and Britain showing a complete unwillingness to compromise on the European Union’s next budget, a major summit in Brussels collapsed on Friday. The EU is in a rut and it’s not clear how it will get out.”
Aside from budget difficulties, the European Union is having problems ratifying the constitution. Some pundits are predicting that the EU will become simply a free-trade zone. But these country-wide votes by the public against ratification have more to do with disgust at their current governments than against the constitution itself.
- Schatzi, bist du es? (Dear, is that you?) Bild Online reports that a new game is popping up for couples following the showing of the film “Nackt” (Naked) on TV. In the film, couples undressed after a dinner party, were blindfolded, and attempted to identify their partner.
I should think this would be fairly easy, but I’m not interested in putting it to the test.
And in other news:
- 1945 suicide order still a trauma on Okinawa, James Brooke of the The New York Times reports in an article on the International Herald Tribune website that suicide orders were given to the citizens of Okinawa by retreating Japanese troops. “Driven by tales of what U.S. soldiers would do with a pretty young woman, Sumie Oshiro recalled, she fled into the forests of Okinawa…’At one place, we sat together and hit the grenade on the ground, but it did not explode,’ she said.”
This reminds me of my stay in the hospital following my appendectomy. My roommate was an elderly east German woman who told me of her experiences as a young woman following the fall of Hitler. She said that there was a lot of fear of the “liberating” army, especially of the black American soldiers, because they would “rape the women”. I wanted to defend our soldiers, to tell her that, yes, rapes and other attrocities occur in war, they are inevitable, but that on an individual level, race, culture identity or citizenship don’t have anything to do with who commits attrocities. That white men from France were just as likely as a black man from America, or an Indian from England to rape [The attitude of the leadership towards this behavior can, however, make a difference, as I think can be seen in Darfur]. But I thought it more appropriate to be silent and just listen to what she wanted to tell me.
- ‘Berlusconi’s fat’ moulded to art, BBC News reports that,
“An art work purportedly made from excess fat from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sold for $18,000 (£9,862).” The artist states that the fat was obtained after Berlusconi underwent liposuction, “I came up with the idea of because soap is made of pig fat, and I thought how much more appropriate it would be if people washed their hands using a piece of Berlusconi.”
Gross, but at least it makes a witty political statement.
- No faking female orgasm in scientific research, “When women genuinely achieved an orgasm, areas of the brain involved in fear and emotion were deactivated.”
Interesting that the same results were not found in men.
Random interjection: Why on many news websites, when looking at the subcategories under Entertainment, Movies, Music and even Gossip get there own subcategories, while books are hidden somewhere under Lifestyles or something or other? Is book reading declining so much in popular culture?
- A great haircut? At $624, it had better be. Does price make a difference? This housewife finds out in an article on MSNBC
As to my personal experience, I think the price quality ratio is similar to most products. There is a big jump in quality with price at first, but at some point the effect levels off. I’ve had the $80 haircut and $150 highlights at the Vidal Sassoon salon in Tysons Galleria, and it is significantly better than your local Hair Cuttery. You are pampered, and instead of chunks of highlights in one color, the colorist slowly picked individual hairs out and applied three different colors to give the hair depth and bring out my curls better. But the stylist explained the price/quality ratio to me, a stylist can charge based on experience and the reputation of their training program. As a new stylist, you aren’t going to get a job at a top end salon; so in essence, there can be great, creative, able stylists out there in low cost salons. The problem is, there are also mediocre stylists in these places. The high-priced salons eliminate the chance of getting one of these mediocre guys. But at some point, I believe there is no difference. The quality of a $600 haircut is the same as the $100 haircut. You are paying for prestige at this point. Like a $30 bottle of wine is infinitely better than a $2 bottle, but the $100 does not show this same increase in quality, and sometimes it is only the connoisseur who can tell the difference.
