Kasi-Blog

Okay, ich schreite mit vollen Schritten auf die 30 zu, da gehört es wohl zum Leben, dass der Zahnarzt den Rat zur Munddusche bereithält. Ich hab schon eine elektrische Zahnbürste namens Philipps Sonycare , welche leicht vibrierend morgens, mittags und abends ihr Werk verbringt. Die dazugehörigen Bürstenköpfe sind zwar etwas teurer, aber der Aufwand lohnt sich schon.

Jetzt ist halt die Munddusche dran – diesmal auch eine Panasonic EW211 zum Mitnehmen. Als Kind hatte ich mal so ein Ding mit langer Strippe und riesigem Plastikbecher, aber als mobiler Zeitgenosse ist mir die Version mit dem im Griff eingebauten Wassertank doch wesentlich angenehmer.

PS Eigentlich blogge ich nicht so gerne über meine Mundhygiene. Aber ich wollte mal testen, ob der Amazon-Store auch wirklich funktioniert.

www.g20blog.de – eine Idee entstanden auf der letzten Beirats-Sitzung des ModelG8 ist jetzt in die Wirklichkeit umgesetzt worden – hier blogge ich gelegentlich zum Thema G8 und G20.

Ab dem 3. Januar 2010 bin ich stolzer Besitzer einer BahnCard100. Mal sehen wie sich jetzt mein Fahrverhalten ändert. Das ist gar nicht so leicht, eine BahnCard100 zu bekommen.

Wer im Abo die stolze Karte erwerben will, muss dafür mehr als vier Wochen vorher sich anmelden bei der Deutschen Bahn. Dafür bekommt man dann aber auch so nette Sachen wie die Anmeldung zum CarSharing der Deutschen Bahn (sonst 99 Euro) geschenkt.

Das wichtigste aber: auch im ÖPNV gilt die BahnCard100, d.h. deutschlandweit kann ich jetzt nicht mehr beim Schwarzfahren erwischt werden, aber die Gefahr bestand ja sowieso nicht.

Ich konnte auch ein Geheimnis lüften: in der Lounge der DB am Berliner Hauptbahnhof gibt es so herrlich bequeme Bürostühle. Sattelstühle. Nach langem Surfen im Web habe ich sie gefunden: HAG Capisco. Kostet ca. 800 Euro, pro Stück. Da lässt sich die Bahn aber ganz schön was einfallen für die stressgeplagten Vielfahrer mit Rückenproblemen. Da kann man dafür schon mal die Züge zwischen München und Berlin etwas öfter ausfallen lassen.

I haven’t blogged for a long time There are so many things that happened in 2009 and now it’s almost 2010.

Worked in journalism for a whole year, managed the Social Media channels, helped to bring political change in Germany and at the same time witnessed a sad election campaign on the federal level. I also learned to appreciate living in Berlin

Next year will be busy year. But I look forward to it. Happy New Year!

The last three days were incredibly busy. I arrived here on Saturday evening, met up with my host-family and spent a wonderful Saturday evening with them. On Sunday, I went to the Rochester Headquarter of the Obama Campaign, went canvassing for the first time, and then headed to Nashua in the evening to see more family members. This morning, Joe Biden the candidate for the vice-president, came to Rochester to speak here, and I could experience how professional the Obama Campaign works. Now I am off for the afternoon, and then in the evening I hopefully have some time to digest the events a little bit.

Tomorrow, I fly to Boston, then take the bus to NH and then I am going to work as a volunteer in the Obama Campaign! I’ll keep you updated!

I haven’t used Twitter much, since I got an account there, I used it three times. But now I decided that I want to read Obamas Channel, subscribed to his twitter-tweets, and what do I get? An automatic message saying that he also follows me. Fantastic

Via BWLZweiNull

The Great Gig in the Sky from Dark Side of the Moon, with a wonderful piano line leading to the mesmerizing vocal part…

… and of course Wearing the Inside Out from Division Bell, one of the occassion where Rick Wright sings along. He always found it hard to compete with David Gilmour and Roger Waters for the vocal parts and remained in the back for most songs, illustrating the compositions with his wonderful piano arrangements.

It features the great opening lines:

From morning to night I stayed out of sight
Didn’t recognize I’d become
No more than alive I’d barely survive
In a word…overrun

The Huffington Post asks:

In a year in which Democrats have a lead of 11 million registered voters over Republicans, and have been adding to that advantage through a robust field operation, are pollsters over-sampling Republicans?

<p><strong>><a href='http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/'>2008 Election Contest: Pick Your President</a></strong> &#8211; Predict the winner of the 2008 presidential election and enter to win a $500 prize.</p> <p>

Great streetart: “Wer anderen eine Bratwurst brät, hat ein Bratwurstgerät” – freely translated “Those making others a hot dog, have a hot dog maker.” A pun on words derived from the German saying “Wer anderen eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein”, which according to Leo means “Harm set, harm done”, never heard of such a phrase. Better translated as “Those digging a pit are likely to fall in it”.

Only 24 hours after Barack Obama announced that Senator Joseph Biden runs as Vice-Presidential Candidate, the Obama Campaign put out an email asking supporters to buy the First Edition of the Obama-Biden-Car-Margnet (I wonder if that would work in Germany as well, the Beck-Steinmeier-Car-Magnet or the Merkel-Koch-Support-Button.)

What the announcement has shown: it’s hard to keep secrets. Obama has been pondering this choice for quite some time, even saying that it will be the most important choice of his presidential campaign.

Only a few people were involved in the decision-making: his wife Michelle Obama and probably his Campaign Manager David Plouffe. They probably also briefed all possible candidates to not say a word to the media on this but simply to test their discipline.

Earlier this week, Obama made his choice. The Obama Campaign said it will announce the decision through SMS and Emails to his supporters first. Yet when the Campaign called other possible candidates to tell them they were not picked, the word leaked out very quickly.

When they finally called Joe Biden, probably sometime on Friday afternoon, the secret could not be kept behind closed doors. Someone, either relatives or friends or staff of Biden, must have notified CNN which were then ready to announce the news really quick.

The Obama Campaign then tried to send around an SMS at 3am on Saturday morning, and they sent an email on Saturday afternoon. In my opinion, this shows some lack of planning. They should have called Biden, ask for his confirmation that he wants to run, and had the SMS-Message and the Emails ready to be sent as soon as Bidens response comes in.

This whole incident shows that it’s very hard to keep secrets once more than three or four people are involved. So to all you conspiracy theorist who think that the Americans did not land on the moon or that George Bush plotted 9/11, you should first prove why such a secret remained a secret.

Now the country song for ever lost its soul
when the guitar player turned to rock & roll

When I was a kid, I was enthusiastis about the Olympics. In 1988 in Korea, it was clear that the Soviets would get most medals, followed by the small country of German Democratic Republic. The Opening Sessions were spectacular and massive manifestations of crowd displays.

This year, I watched the Opening Session which was amazing. But when I heard about the repeated manipulations made to the images, I lost interest in the event as a whole. I read some articles on the internet on some sport results, but I never watched it on television.

In 1988, I still thought that the Olympics try to bring people from various countries together. Yet with Jacques Rogge openly admitting its impotence in the face of Chinese Human Rights violations, with Doping being so prominently used in almost all sports, and with commerce dominating sports health, the Olympics have become boring.

The situation in China is too complicated that it fits into the China-Evil-Tibet-Good-Pattern neatly. It’s also clear that a Sport Event does not change a country’s development overnight. But I think the whole rhetoric about human rights, olympic values, peace and prosperity is nonsense. The Olympic Games is acting like a huge corporation, maximizing its value by appealing to new markets. This however makes the Olympics as interesting as any other Corporate Sport Event.

Maybe London will change things. I still remember the great crowd enthusiasm at the Paralympics in Sydney in 2000. And maybe reforms need it times, if we look back in time, than eight years after the 1936 Games in Berlin, the Hitler-Regime was gone, 10 years after the 1980 Games in Moscow the Soviet Union broke up. Maybe in 2018, China will look very different from what it looks today.

Bavaria is like Texas. Agricultural in some parts, high-tech in other parts, wealthy in most parts, conservative almost everywhere. The Conservative Party, the CSU, has been running the country for than five decades.

This time however the Conservatives are in trouble. The Bavarian prime-minister, Beckstein, and the Head of the Conservatives, Huber, appear not to be such fortunate in implementing the legacy of former prime-minister Stoiber.

At the regional elections this fall, the opposition parties have a real chance to get a large pie of the Bavarian Electorate Pie. The Left-Party is most likely to enter the Parliament for the First Time and the Green Party is already hoping to be the coalition partner for a weekened Conservative Party.

The Bavarian SPD, the German Labour Party, has some problems bringing their message of change to the voters. The problem is that the campaign is not really modern, despite attempts to cultivate its Rebell-Image.

Currently the Partly of the National SPD, Kurt Beck, is in Bavaria. Despite what the media in Berlin thinks, I personally think that he is often underestimated. He is good at managing a dialogue, but his not good at backstabbing people – which is what the journalists in Berlin like so much.

In a recent Spiegel-Article about Becks Summer Tour through Bavaria, I read that he also visited Gundelsheim, a small village not far from Bamberg in the northern part of Bavaria (escuse me – correct it would be Upper Franconia).

Gundelsheim is famous now because it has a young Social Democrat as mayor, Jonas Merzbacher. I was really astonished when I read the name, but then I should not have been surprised. I met Jonas, now 25, during my Campaign for the European Parliament 4 years ago. He was quite unlike most of the other people in the SPD Youth Organisation – not so much interested in theoretical debates, but interested in pragmatic politics.

He is a “local” in the best sense of the word – member in almost all clubs in that area, knew everybody in his region, organized all kinds of activities for young and old. And as you can see in the picture below, even during his speech on the night of victory, he drinks beer, disguised as lemonade.

The Bavarian SPD needs more people like Jonas. It should present itself as the “Local Party with an international history” and help young people like Jonas to become more active in local politics.

For a couple of weeks now there wasps have been building a nest in the roof outside my window. On Monday night one of these little beasts must have come through the window when I was sleeping and mistook my leg for a nice soft spot to have a midnight supper.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the bite got worse, but last night I couldn’t really walk because the leg was swollen – nothing dramatic though, no amputation needed. I felt I should go to the doctor, have it checked out and meet with the British Health System for the second time.

So I called the GP down the road. GP stands for General Practitioner and like in the old days in East-Germany, it’s a bunch of doctors which share a clinic. But the nice lady at the reception said that I don’t need a doctor, the “Common Ailments Nurse” would be sufficient.

Well, what is the “Common Ailments Nurse”. It’s a really good invention of the British Health System. She can prescribe medication and treat minor diseases, such as Cough or Fever, Headache, or Insomnia. My Nurse was called June and quite helpful, but I was more surprised by the whole procedure.

I called at 9am, got an appointment at 11am, sait in the waiting room for 3 minutes, talked to the nurse for 10 minutes and had my medication. What did I pay for that? Nothing – Basic Health Care is free in the UK. Did I have to bring some sort of insurance proof? No, it suffices that I was registered with the College.

During those 3 minutes in the Waiting Room, I also discovered on the leaflets there that the government gives money to young parents to buy milk and vitamins. I also discovered that the city of Cambridge helps older people if they have problems paying taxes. It’s almost socialism, isn’t it?

Well, I had to go the pharmacy to get the antibiotics. Here came another surprise: the pharmacy is in the center of town. It’s called “Superdrugs”. But the people in there must have been on a tranquilizer or something. There were about five people standing behind the counter all of them busy watching each other. Instead of just fetching the box of pills, my prescription was passed through the hands of each of them.

I was told to wait five to ten minutes. I asked why it takes so long and the person behind the registry said that the medicine has to go into the computer and whatnot. Ten minutes later I received a small package, about three times the size of the box of pills inside. Neatly stapled together, folded, wrapped up (with a bow – no just kidding). Ah, that’s what takes them so long, each customer gets their own little present – a paper bag. I think they were kinda disappointed when I ripped the bag open right on the counter and put the small box in my rucksack. “The young people are so ungrateful”.

The German Health System could learn a lot from that. For most treatments, you don’t need a doctor – a trained nurse is quicker and easier to access. Each medicine, regardless of the type, costs 7.10 Pounds – a one-price-fits-all policy. Clinics and doctors have the responsiblity to prevent diseases – and not just treat them.