GLEN BECK ADMITTED in 2007, “I Am RACIST and Barack Obama is very White” THIS MAKES Boycotting FOX NEWS needed NOW

GLEN BECK ADMITTED in 2007, “I Am RACIST and Barack Obama is very White” THIS MAKES Boycotting FOX NEWS needed NOW

By Kevin Stoda

Dear, American supporters of the Fascist Oddball Xenophobic (FOX) news networks.

AMERICANS are getting less tolerant of your racism and stronghold on our major media.

For example, we have noted that in his 2007 TV program from FOX (See on You-Tube), Glen Beck admitted he himself was racist. Further, Beck then, in contrast to 2009, called Barrack Obama much more white than black. (Apparently, Beck now he has other nonsense to mush men’s minds.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0tgvWxC_6A

Using a major news platform to promote racism and to tell people to disrespect a whole presidential administration through mixed truths, outright lies, and xenophobia, is not to be tolerated any more.

On Democracy Now today, Amy Goodman asked Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP what he thought of Wal-Mart’s pull-out from advertising on the Glen Beck program on FOX.

NOTE: Goodman had simply asked , “The whole attack by Glenn Beck that drove this (resignation)? In your response from the NAACP to Van Jones, it says, ´The only thing more outrageous than Mr. Beck’s attack on Van Jones is the fact that there are sponsors that continue to pay him to provide this type of offensive commentary.` Do you support the continued boycott of companies like Wal-Mart of Beck’s show on Fox?”

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/8/white_house_environmental_adviser_van_jones

This is a particularly important point because Glen Beck´s HATE CAMPAIGN ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION led recently to a great American policy maker, Van Jones, quitting the government this week.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/06/van-jones-resigns/

Mr. Jealous said, “We certainly support them (Walmart) choosing with their dollars who they’re going to support. I mean, it’s—Glenn Beck is somebody who’s told a seven-year-old girl, a seven-year-old black girl, that he would buy her a ticket back to Africa, that she needed to go back to Africa. And then he comes out, and he says that healthcare is the beginning of reparations. I mean, this guy plays the race card on a weekly basis. He does it very aggressive—you know, in a very hateful way.”

Recall, first, that Van Jones is one of the most important and thoughtful men in America—however, the FOX (Fascist Oddball Xenophobic) news network chose to support a man, like Glen Beck, rather than seeing that tens of millions of Americans need to get health care from promoters like Jones and that our America economy needs to move starting today to the kind of economy that its competitors worldwide are already doing.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/95963/what_will_the_green_economy_look_like/

Let’s quote the wisdom and influential words of Van Jones on the absolute necessity to green the American economy NOW!
“I think it’s really important to point out that we’re sort of at the end of an era of American capitalism, where we thought we could run the economy based on consumption rather than production, credit rather than creativity, borrowing rather than building, and also, most importantly, environmental destruction rather than environmental restoration.”
Jones continued, “We’re trying to make the case in this book that that era is over. We now have to move in a very different direction. And key to that will be basing the US economy not on credit cards, but based on clean energy and the clean energy revolution that would put literally millions of people to work, putting up solar panels all across the United States, weatherizing buildings so they don’t leak so much energy and put up so much carbon, building wind farms and wave farms, manufacturing wind turbines. We argue you could put Detroit back to work not making SUVs to destroy the world, but making wind turbines, 8,000 finely machine parts in each one, twenty tons of steel in each wind tower, making wind turbines to help save the world.”
Finally, Van Jones wisely noted, “So we think that you can fight pollution and poverty at the same time. We think that you can actually power our way through this recession by putting people to work, but we’re going to have to start building things here and re-powering, retrofitting, retooling America, and that that’s the way forward both for the economy, for the earth and for everyday people.”
Note: These statements came from a program on DN from October of last year:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/28/van_jones_on_the_green_collar

Van Beck has written a book of the same title, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems.

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061650758/The_Green_Collar_Economy/index.aspx

America needs such voices as Van Jones in government leadership in America—not Fascist Oddball Xenophobic (FOX) types.

Clean up the American airwaves of all its fascism and racism, today.

http://www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com/a-petition-against-fox-conservative-host-glenn-beck.aspx

NOTE: One way to change the noise of Fascist Oddball Xenophobic (FOX) media moguls is to support alternative media organizations

http://aan.org/alternative/Aan/index

and alternative monitoring websites.

http://americas.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/64380

Another way, is to demand that local radio and TV channels put better programming on, such as Democracy Now or news sources promoted by serious progressive journalists:

http://www.tacomapjh.org/progressive_news.htm

DOSES OF REALITY ; WHY MANY AMERICANS NEED THE PUBLIC HEALTH CARE OPTION AS OF YESTERDAY

DOSES OF REALITY & WHY MANY AMERICANS NEED THE PUBLIC HEALTH CARE OPTION AS OF YESTERDAY

By  F.

Hi,  America,

I hope you can link on to this video…it’s an amazing story about why the public health care option is so important.  It’s about 10 minutes long but worth watching.  If the link doesn’t work copy and paste it in your browser.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33487061#33487061

Love,

F.

P.S. Here are more.  Tell the Senate to get to work!!!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33487061#33441674

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33487061#33422099

THE WALL 30 YEAR ANNIVERSARY—20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

THE WALL 30 YEAR ANNIVERSARY—20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

 

By Kevin Anthony Stoda,  America, Germany, Europe

 

 

Well, as this November 2009 is the 30^th Anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd’s THE WALL, I thought I would watch the film again.  It is online here currently.

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7537901785624234406#

 

I remember that autumn 1979, we seniors in high school had already been inundated by the tune “Another Brink in the Wall (Part2)”.  Those lyrics went something like this.

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

 

Two years later at college, I would paint my room with the white and black bricks of THE WALL album cover.

We don’t need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

 

Coming from Kansas schools, where education in the 1970s was still well-above national average, I was not one to chime in with those second groups of lyrics—but I did understand sentiments to the Wasteland of the Midwest.   On the other hand, I could not understand these lines because we never had much pudding, like Roger Gilmour and his British friends in the band.

 

“Wrong, Do it again!”
“If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?”
“You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!”

 

I recall once getting whipped with a paddle for a crime in school that I didn’t do back in the 4^th grade in Wentzville, Missouri, but otherwise, I feel as an educator that students are just as likely to abuse a teacher as the other way around.

 

Now that I look at the 1982 film, THE WALL, I am stuck by the fact that it is not British cops beating the mostly Caucasian youth in the film with Bob Geldof, who went on to create the LIVE AID CONCERTS.   It is an American flag and the cop cars are large American cars—albeit with a British paddy wagon.

 

http://www.bobgeldof.info/Charity/

 

I wonder why the American allusion when the band, Pink Floyd, is British…?

 

According to one synopsis, “The movie tells the story of rock singer ‘Pink’ who is sitting in his hotel room in Los Angeles, burnt out from the music business and only able to perform on stage with the help of drugs. Based on the 1979 double album “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, the film begins in Pink’s youth where he is crushed by the love of his mother. Several years later he is punished by the teachers in school because he is starting to write poems. Slowly he begins to build a wall around himself to be protected from the world outside. The film shows all this in massive and epic pictures until the very end where he tears down the wall and breaks free.”

 

Ok, so perhaps the story takes place partially in the USA—and it is American fascism, not European fascism that is Roger Water’s worry.

 

Another small synopsis points out, “The life of the fictional rock star ‘Pink’ is the subject of the visually evocative cult film based upon the music and visions of the group Pink Floyd as portrayed in the album of the same title. Relationships, drug abuse, sex, childhood, WWII and fascism combine in a disturbing mix of episodic live action and lyrical animation drawn by British caricaturist Gerald Scarfe.”

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084503/plotsummary

 

I would have to say, despite the allusion to the USA, the Bricks in the Wall take place in young Pink’s European world of fascism, drugs, and Rock’n Roll.  On the other hand, the violence in schools roles began to change in the UK in the 1990s with children being massacred in a Scottish school.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/15/world/scottish-school-killer-had-stormy-past.html

 

By Spring 1992 Los Angeles was burning after the first Rodney King trial, too.

 

http://www.noob.us/miscellaneous/video-of-the-1992-los-angeles-riots/

 

Finally, by the end of the 1990s massacres, like at Columbine High were far too common.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvEzz4Mi7mc

 

Now, in Germany, this is student on society or school violence is all too common place.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roDd310t4HM

 

There seems to be a hunger and rage built up in some schools.  Hazing is not uncommon in any school, but society out of control and leading to violence and drugs is so much part of THE WALL story that one cannot help but feel that in 2009, the European fascist world is equally seen on both sides of the Atlantic—even in countries, like Germany where such violence was unheard of until about 2002.

 

http://nachrichten.t-online.de/bonn-geplanter-amoklauf-waere-fast-zur-katastrophe-geworden/id_19659580/index

 

On the other hand, the Cold War had kept a lot of societal divisions and social inequities, i.e. in terms of power and access to life choices, under wraps through the 1980s.  That is most of us were sure up through the early 1980s that the Superpowers would accidentally blow up the planet, so we were all out walking on eggshells a bit in those days.

 

Don’t forget how Roger Waters wrote in “Mother” of the bomb and our need to be calm and cool it:

Mother do you think they’ll drop the bomb?
Mother do you think they’ll like this song?
Mother do you think they’ll try to break my balls?
Mother should I build the wall?
Mother should I run for president?
Mother should I trust the government?
Mother will they put me in the firing line?
Mother am I really dying?

Hush now baby, baby, don’t you cry.
Mother’s gonna make all your nightmares come true.
Mother’s gonna put all her fears into you.
Mother’s gonna keep you right here under her wing.

 

 

THE WALL AND BERLIN

 

The Berlin Wall was synonymous with the Cold War. On November 9, 1989, through an accident of history, the East German government allowed the Anti-Capitalist Protection Wall be opened up a day earlier than planned. Unlike the Cold War–filled as it was with fear, arms buildups, threats, distant wars, and lies—the thousands of protestors of East Germany in 1989 took a peaceful route to change.  They, the East German protestors, marched en masse to the key phrases, such as NO TO VIOLENCE and AGAINST ALL VIOLENCE that revolutionary year.

 

These sort of words mixed with thousands holding candles in their hands was too much for the communist fascist regime in East Germany in October and November.  They capitulated and the Berlin Wall was open.

 

Similarly, in “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 3)”, Pink had sung the following:

I don’t need no arms around me
And I don’t need no drugs to calm me.
I have seen the writing on the wall.
Don’t think I need anything at all.
No! Don’t think I’ll need anything at all.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all you were all just bricks in the wall.

Could the “no arms” be understood as no-to-weapons by the masses in 1989 in Eastern Germany?

 

In any case, the peaceful end of the 1980s in Germany could be contrasted with the violence that we see in Germany, in the UK, in Spain, and the USA today in terms people finding peaceful ways to settle differences in and among members of peace loving societies.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oy8eI75t1I

 

On July 21, 1990 millions around the world watched or listened to THE WALL being performed on the NO MANS LAND near Potsdammer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate.  It was a metaphorical celebration to the end of an AGE.  That was an age when people could be walled in by their leaders—or the end of the age when masses would allow themselves to be walled in by others.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_-_Live_in_Berlin

 

This excitement at beginning a new age is why I enjoyed the concert in Berlin of THE WALL on July 21, 1990 more than at any other time.

 

Interestingly, at that very moment, Saddam Hussein was planning to takeover and absorb his neighbor, Kuwait, within less than two weeks of that Berlin THE WALL event.

 

Our world has not been so peaceable since.

 

 

 

 

GERMANY LIKES TO BUILD WALLS—or Chancellor Merkel,

GERMANY LIKES TO BUILD WALLS—or Chancellor Merkel,
Tear Down Those Walls?

By Kevin Stoda, in Germany

As most readers know, American visa seekers and long-term North American residents in Germany have been facing a lot of trouble in recent years keeping visas for themselves and getting proper visas for their loved ones.

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/the-criticisim-is-increasing-the-german-visa-and-immigration-process-needs-to-be-investigated-by-canada-usa-and-uk/

Just today, I learned of an American missionary in Bremen, who was recently threatened with expulsion after it was determined that she, too, did not earn enough money to be allowed to continue to receive a visa in Germany. The woman has already lived in the country of Germany six years.

Even though I earn (or receive as inheritance) over 60,000 dollars this particular year, I have been notified by the Wiesbaden integration office (Auslandsbehoerde) that I earn too little money to bring my Filipino-born wife into Germany to live. Therefore, I feel that there is a strong case for xenophobia directed towards American passport holders in 2009. On the other hand, the xenophobia is certainly more wide-spread than simple anti-Americanism. In other words, Germany has put a great Wall up in central Europe to keep non-Germans out.

This wall-building against feared foreign hordes Central Europe is partially the result of widespread lawlessness and abuses in the visa system and foreign policy of Germany after the Wall opened up in 1989 and when the Soviet Union disintegrated a few years later. During the 1990s, Germany was unusually hospitable to refugees and a particularly group of Eastern Europeans who could prove German ancestry.

This later group is sometimes referred to as “spaet Sielder” (late settlers) or “deutsche Einsieldler aus Ost Europa” (German settlers from Eastern Europe). The Soviet regimes had scattered, for example, German speaking peoples of Volga and Ukraine as far as Kazakhstan and Siberia in the wake of WWII. These peoples made up the last great wave of German integration of the past decade. In short, between the collapse of the wall, the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the Balkans wars of the 1990s, Germany took on several million new residents.

This ten resulted in a severe tightening of border control and in the area of visa regulations in Germany in the first part of this decade. Later, after the Spanish and London train bombings, the noose was tightened further. Now, everyone who is foreign and wants to live in Germany appears to need to earn over 60,000 US dollars per year and must already have family living here.

AMERICANS OFTEN DON´T COUNT AS FAMILY IN GERMANY

Wait a second, I have family here in Germany. However, according to the visa offices in Wiesbaden and elsewhere, they do not count.

Yeah, I have a sister, a brother-in-law, and 3 nephews and nieces living in Bavaria right now. However, since my brother-in-law is in the U.S. military, he and his family do not count as family for would-be American settlers or day-laborers in Germany. That is, my immediate family lives in a special economic zone in Germany, i.e. in an area called a military post or military reservation.

This sort of location in Germany is known as living-off-the-economy. By the way, living-on-the-economy is the rest of Germany, i.e. not covered by such special economic zones. These special areas on the reservations or military bases use dollars and have their own commissaries and regulated gas prices.

If one lives on or visits one of these special economic zones from overseas, one is seldom (if-ever) given a visa to work in Germany on-the-economy. In short, teenagers who grow up on such military reserves have no right to live or work outside the reservation. Likewise, mothers who live on such bases have no right to go looking for part-time jobs off the reservation.

In short, through my USA family connections in Bavaria for visa purposes, neither my wife and nor I know visa security in Germany. The Visa offices in Germany treat my sister’s family on the reservation as a non-existent family (who live by definition off-the-economy). Amazingly, though, my sister’s family and many other Americans living on such military reservations find themselves spending a humongous share of their savings in Euros and in the German economy. For example, they go out for a bite of wiener schnitzel at the local restaurants or they travel on holiday into the Alps (to Christmas markets, etc.) or they seek out doctors off-the-post for assistance with childhood and special medical help.

Likewise, even if an American military family would seek housing off the post or reservation, they would get soaked for rent of double the normal price because they would be competing with military subcontractors from the USA, who locate themselves near and around the bases.

DO AMERICANS NEED A VISA TO TRAVEL TO GERMANY?

Wait a minute—you might ask—do Americans need to acquire German visas before arriving in Europe?

Well, the answer is NO. An American visitor can receive a stamp on arrival.

However, my wife is not American. She was born in the Philippines. So, she is being currently barred from either visiting or living with me in Germany because the local Wiesbaden Integration Office (using bizarre criteria designed to keep most foreigners out) says that 60,000 dollars is too little for a couple to live on in Germany in 2009—although the German economy has had little-to-no inflation this year. ALDI’s, the great supermarket chain, has lowered prices 33 times this year already.

Meanwhile, according to a Middle Eastern newspaper, the population of Germany has sunk again. “Germany’s population shrank for a sixth straight year in 2008, according to official data published on Wednesday. The number of people in Western Europe’s most populous country now stands at 82.06 million people, down 160,000 from 82.22 million in 2007, the statistics office said in a statement. The number of births and deaths in Germany last year was roughly unchanged compared to 2007, with around 690,000 births and about 845,000 deaths.”

With continued draconian measures against would-be immigrants, such as my poor wife, in 2009 the state of German, Central & Western Europe’s most populous one, now has its lowest population total since East and West Germany unified in 1990.

It appears now, in 2009, that the only way to gain legal residence in Germany these days is to come here illegally and apply. Thousands of Turkish and Eastern Europeans do so regularly. Then, after paying a fine, they proceed with their true European rights before the courts.

However, this sort of land-crossing option is not possible for North Americans nor Filipinos—especially if they adamantly do not want to break immigration law and face expulsion nor arrest.

TEAR DOWN THE WALL—ANGIE, PLEASE!!!

Tomorrow, Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, will meet with Hillary Clinton, Michael Gorbachev, and other world leaders to commemorate the opening of the Berlin and East German borders on November 9, 1989—20 years ago.

That was a joyous time.

Families who had not been able to see each other easily for decades were able to cross the East and West German borders at will.

Unification was soon in sight.

Please, Chancellor Merkel, tear down the wall run by both the foreign ministry and at the various integration offices (Auslands- und Visumbehoerde) in Germany, run by the Interior Ministry.

Otherwise, years from now, people will remember Germany in this very decade not as a unified growing and positive example of global integration (and global unification)—but as a walled fortress hostile to new blood and peoples, i.e. a country which shrank into oblivion and never really learned to accept the needs of others knocking at their door seeking family unification, employment, and justice.

NOTES

(1) German Retail sales need to increase in order to supplant the declines in the losses on the global economy in the 2008 to 2014 period, but a decrease in in-grown purchasing power due to smaller population and smaller demands related to smaller demographics throughout Germany is not helpful.

http://eurowatch.blogspot.com/2008/05/german-retail-sales-april-2008.html

(2) More information on German and Japanese demographic issues can be found here:

http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20021224_trends_s21/index.html

(3) Another reason for outbound migration from Germany is discussed here:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/HOMESCHOOLING-VERBOTEN-IN-by-ALONE-090611-541.html

(4) According to the website below, “An investigation carried out in 1978 revealed that since 1820 over 6,978,000 people emigrated to the United States from Germany. This amounted to 14.3 percent of the total foreign immigration during this period.” In short, no country sent more peoples to live in America than did Germany.

http://www.perfspot.com/groups/group.asp?id=8202177D-D9CA-4882-920F-73CD272EA8AA

“In 1829, Gottfried Duden, a German visitor to America, published his book, Report of a Journey to the Western States of North America. The book providing a very attractive account of German immigrant life in America. As well as describing spectacular harvests, Duden praised the intellectual freedom enjoyed by people living in America. The book sold in large numbers and persuaded thousands of Germans to emigrate.”´

It was in this waive that Friedrich Stade (Stoda), my great, great, great grandfather arrived in America.

“The failed German revolution in 1848 also stimulated emigration. Over the next ten years over a million people left Germany and settled in the United States. Some were the intellectual leaders of this rebellion, but most were impoverished Germans who had lost confidence in its government’s ability to solve the country’s economic problems.”
Many other Germans left to live in other parts of continental Europe and into the open space of the Ukraine and Russia. Later, some of these same Russian and Ukraine Germans settled in the plains of the USA and Canada. I went to a Kansas college founded by such immigrants.

“Others left (Germany) because they feared constant political turmoil in Germany. One prosperous innkeeper wrote after arriving in Wisconsin: “I would prefer the civilized, cultured, Germany to America if it were still in its former orderly condition, but as it has turned out recently, and with the threatening prospect for the future of religion and politics, I prefer America. Here I can live a more quiet, and undisturbed life.´”

I wanted to bring my wife to live in the peace and quiet of Germany after living in the Middle East most of the past decade. I had expected to show her around Germany and Europe, but AULSAENDER VERBOTEN is the rule if one doesn’t come from certain nationalities or races.

Again, I ask: “Frau Chancellor Merkel, TEAR DOWN THE BUREAUCRATIC AND ANTI-FOREIGNER WALLS NOW this November 9, 2009”

NETWORKS AGAINST NAZIS, NPD MARCHES STOPPED?, & Other Anti-Fascist News from Germany

NETWORKS AGAINST NAZIS, NPD MARCHES STOPPED?, & Other Anti-Fascist News from Germany

 

By Kevin Stoda, Hessen, Germany

 

This is called an “Action Week Against Anti-Semitism” in Germany by the Netz.Gegen.Nazis.de.  This week was chosen because November 9, 1938 was the day when most synagogues in Germany were burned down during the Nazi era. Judges are permitting an NPD march today, November 7, by the NPD in Friedberg, Hessen.  Friedberg has a long history in the Jewish community in German, for example, many noted rabbis over the century came from Friedberg.

 

http://www.netz-gegen-nazis.de/artikel/aktionswochen-gegen-antisemitismus-2009-starten

 

On August 1, 2009, a pair of NPD marches were stopped in the Hessen towns of  Nidda and Friedberg by massive counterdemonstrations.  In Friedberg, there were no less than five counterdemonstrations.

 

http://www.fr-online.de/top_news/1860751_Friedberg-in-Hessen-Gegendemo-blockiert-NPD-Aufmarsch.html

 

The Nationalist Party of Germany (the NPD) had called out a march with the slogan:  “Germans Defend Yourself Against Islam and Foreign Domination”. In Friedberg, there were on August 1 several scuffles between the two groups of demonstrators early on. Some 1700 counter-demonstrators force the NPD  to seek out new locations.

 

http://antinazi.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/friedberg-7-11-vg-giesen-gibt-npd-antrga-statt-route-durch-die-altstadt-bestatigt-stadt-ruft-den-vgh-in-kassel-an/

 

It is anticipated that today similar hundreds and thousands of counterdemonstrators will be present in the streets of Friedberg and at the train station to meet the NPD demonstrators.

 

Netz.Gegen.Nazis.de is a very active network of German citizens and foreigners who work together to keep fascists out of the hands of internet and internet chat rooms nationwide.  There website provides links for many other groups and encourages participants of all ages to do something to stop the rising harmful influences of Nazi and fascist ideology on web in Germany.

 

Internet portals have been the main means of quietly contacting and recruiting German youth in the last years just as Anti-Nazi groups organize and use the web to spread more factual information about the fascist groups intentions.

 

The ability of anti-fascist groups to gather quickly at the scenes of marches, such as that of the NPD this weekend in Friedberg, comes through a combination of internet and cell phone technologies, such as Twitter.

 

Besides Netz.Gegen.Nazis.de, which means Network Against Nazis in Germany,

 

http://www.netz-gegen-nazis.de/

 

there are many other cooperating web organizations, the Federal Center for Political Education,

 

http://www.bpb.de/themen/R2IRZM,0,Rechtsextremismus.html ,

 

Shoah Germany,

 

http://www.shoa.de/

 

Step 21, the Initiative for Tolerance and Responsibility,

 

http://www.step21.de/

 

and

 

Schools without Racism,

 

http://www.schule-ohne-rassismus.org/ .

 

 

Each of these sites has its specialty,  some are targeted at teens, others at twenty-somethings, and others across-the-spectrum. Netz.Gegen.Nazis.de provides background and detailed location information on fascist writers and leaders in Hessen and other parts of Germany, so that people understand where cell groups might sprout up or be sprouting up their neighborhood.

 

 

THREE WALL STORIES, THREE NEWSPAPERS, THREE PHOTOS, Three Editorials–of sorts

THREE WALL STORIES, THREE NEWSPAPERS, THREE PHOTOS

 

By Kevin Stoda, Germany

 

I decided last weekend to make a trip to Berlin.

 

On the drive to Berlin from Wiesbaden, I came upon a McDonald’s offering a free BILD newspaper (dated October 31, 2009) , with cover stories and photos of 3 aging men who are intrinsically intertwined in the popular myths about the collapse of communism and the opening of the Wall in Berlin on November 9, 1989.  The faces were of Helmut Kohl (called the Unification Chancellor by many), George Herbert Walker Bush ( the former US President and ex-CIA chief, who made one his unusually good moves in foreign policy by supporting German unification in 1990), and Michael Gorbachev (renowned as the architect of a new Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, i.e. through his leadership as final Soviet Premier in the era called Perestroika by modern European historians).

 

http://www.bild.de/BILD/politik/topics/vaeter-der-einheit/kohl-bush-gorbatschow.html

 

The BILD Zeitung (Newspaper) is the most-read tabloid in Europe, thanks to its many bare-breasted beauties scattered throughout its bountiful pages.  The paper is owned by the Axel Springer Verlag, and used to be the bastion of what Americanologists see as Germany’s equivalent to the USA’s FOX-NEWS-type culture of readers and consumers.

Founded in the middle of the Cold War, “[f]rom the outset, the editorial drift [of BILD] was unabashedly conservative and nationalist.”  BILD had called the East German government simply by the name “Soviet Occupation Zone” for decades

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild

 

BILD, back in the 1960s and early 1970s, had often unfairly biased many West Germans against the student protest and reform movements. “A popular catchphrase in left-wing circles sympathetic to student radicalism was “Bild hat mitgeschossen!” (Bild shot at him too). At the height of left-wing terrorism around 1977, Bild took a strong stance that could be said to have contributed to the climate of fear and suspicion.”

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Honour_of_Katharina_Blum

 

In Nobel Prize winning author’s, Heinrich Boell’s  novelette, THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM, the BILD-like German newspaper  is considered the main character or target of the author’s venom.  The subtitle of the work is “how violence develops and where it can lead”. In short, according to Boell, media (like BILD) has the ability to kill and to propagate violence—and most of the left-wing audience of Germany back in the 1970s agreed with Boell’s opinion on BILD.

 

Interestingly, following the collapse of communism in the 1990s, this very wealthy newspaper, BILD, has actually moved closer to the center.  This trend enabled the paper to finally pick up its roots and move from a conservative location in Hamburg it was publishing out of for decades to the modern and moderate city of  Berlin in 2008.

 

Wrapped in its new image, BILD, has now somewhat reverted to its older image by bringing Kohl and Bush, as cold warriors, back to the center stage in this week—i.e. during the 20^th anniversary of the collapse of a communist regime in East Germany.  Simultaneously, Kohl and Bush (the elder) see this week of festivities in Berlin as a means to roll-back-the-clock on historians who have been painting the collapse of communism as a more populist or people’s affair.  In short, Kohl and Bush legacies have quite a lot invested in reviving or keeping up the myth that only by outspending and out-threatening the Soviet Union in the arms race had the immediate collapse of Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s occurred.

 

NOTE:  Interestingly, Michael Gorbachev has been using his own public podium in Berlin this week to note that both the USA (and Germany) need a bit more Perestroika, too, these days.

 

http://www.javno.com/en-world/gorbachev–obama-needs-to-start-us-perestroika_200512

 

Interestingly, on my journy to Berlin last weekend, I sat down with a former CIA agent, who had been married to a Sovietologist in the early 1980s.

 

That Sovietologist had written a major article in the early 1980s for the newly elected Ronald Reagan-George Bush regime–in which this Sovietologists had outlined that the Kremlin was then already being torn asunder by the ascendancy of Doves (whom Gorbachev would join) , i.e. leaders in the Kremlin who were interested more in détente with the West than in the Breschnev-Andropov policies of the previous decades.   However, the CIA leadership in the 1981-84 period told that young Sovietologist to “stuff it”, i.e. the Hawkish Reagan-Bush regime at that time was not interested in hearing about the ascendancy of Doves in the Kremlin –while NATO and the USA was busy blowing away trillions in the biggest arms buildup in peace time history.

 

 

A PICTURE OF A WALL ON PAGE 9

 

On Monday, November 2, 2009, on p. 9, in the BERLINER ZEITUNG was a photo and a map of a wall.  As  I looked closely at the photo and map, I smiled at the obvious irony.

 

http://www.berlin.de/tourismus/twinity/berliner_mauer/ankuendigung_en/

 

You see… all around one in Berlin this month, there are expositions, tours, memorials, and museums commemorating the memory of the various East German Walls and the Collapse of the STASI (State Security) Regime.

 

http://www.u2station.com/news/2009/11/u2-commemorate-fall-of-berlin-wall-at-mtv-europe-music-awards.php

 

However, what was shown on p. 9 of the Berliner Newspaper was of a man standing on a ladder leaning against a large cement wall, built to separate permanently neighbors from neighbors.  The title under the picture was: “Locked Out.”  The text under the photo in bold read “A Man looks over the Great Israeli Protection Wall to the settlement of Nilin, which is [actually] located on Palestinian territory.”

 

http://www.goethe.de/ges/prj/mar/pro/flyer/flyer_goethe.pdf

 

Beside the photo of the solitary Palestinian (p.9) looking over the Israeli Wall at his own land is a settlement map of Western Jordan, i.e. the West Bank.  Below the map is the statement that 470,000 Israeli Jews live in the occupied territory of West Jordan.  (In addition, another 190,000 Israelis have occupied and live in Arab territory in and around Jerusalem.)  Some of the Israeli settlements have 30,000 Israeli settlers on them.

 

http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2009/1102/politik/0034/index.html

 

Interestingly, the photo and map are missing from the online version of Nov. 2, 2009’s BZ (Berliner Zeitung).  However, the message of the photo of the Apartheid Wall of Israel and the map of the West Bank were not lost on German readers of the article on Hillary Clinton in Israel, written by Inge Guenther.  The headline on that same page 9 read: “Hillary Clinton supports Nenayahu” and his reasons not to fully stop settlement building in Israel.

 

The decision to introduce the photo and the map during the 20^th Anniversary Wall celebrations and reunions in Berlin are a clear editorial comment that no-such walls are really acceptable to the peoples divided by them.

 

SWARM INTELLIGIENCE AND COLLAPSE OF WALLS

 

Similarly, there was a photographic comment or editorialmade by the publishers of WELT KOMPAKT, another Springer newspaper publication in Germany, on November 2, 2009.  The Kompakt newspaper is like a Readers Digest of articles from the more famous DIE WELT newspaper in Germany.  The article of interest to me was one on “Swarm Intelligience”.

 

Interestingly, DIE WELT had published an article last August with the title and same photo you see on this link below.  In that article, entitled BIOLOGISTS RIDICULE THE IDEA OF SWARM INTELLIGIENCE, DIE WELT writer Matthias Glaubrecht reveals that many biologists do not consider “swarm intelligence” as being intelligent at all.

 

http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article2287063/Biologen-dementieren-die-Schwarmintelligenz.html

 

“Swarm Intelligence” is also called collective intelligence.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence

 

Collective intelligence consists of three types of manifest intelligence from biology, neurology and the social sciences.  It involves cooperation, coordination, and related social and individual cognitions. “The best-known collective intelligence projects are political parties, which mobilize large numbers of people to form policy, select candidates and to finance and run election campaigns.”

 

Scholarpedia explains that “Swarm intelligence is the discipline that deals with natural and artificial systems composed of many individuals that coordinate using decentralized control and self-organization.”  Belgium researchers, Marco Dorigo and Mauro Birattari, also note “In particular, the discipline focuses on the collective behaviors that result from the local interactions of the individuals with each other and with their environment. Examples of systems studied by swarm intelligence are colonies of ants and termites, schools of fish, flocks of birds, herds of land animals.”

 

The WELT KOPMAKT article, written by Axel Tiedemann, was entitled “Die Schwarmintelligenz” and had the subtitle: “Humans behave like Schools of Fish—Only a few Control the Many”.

 

http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article5057937/Menschen-verhalten-sich-in-Gruppen-wie-Fische.html

 

Tiedemann describes sociological experiments whereby many participating volunteers are asked to stand in a large auditorium or to walk around.  No one amongst the greatest share of volunteers was given any direction as to how to move about.

 

However, 5 percent of those participating had, in fact, been given clear indication that they were to act in coordination.  In short, soon the great mass  of students began to act and travel about the auditorium as a coordinated school of fish–without even knowing that they were being led to do so by no more than 5 percent of the population.

 

In short, what revolutionary, anarchists, and secret agents, such as those in the CIA, observed a long time ago, a  small group of coordinated leaders can get the great masses of others in a society to follow them simply by working the masses like the few leaders in a school of fish do.

 

Why am I sharing this particular fish story about “swarm intelligence” after talking about Walls in East Germany and Israel?

 

Well, you see, the editors of the WELT KOMPAKT on Monday had decided to put a photo of hundreds of people sitting on the Wall in front of the Brandenburg gate in November 2009 under the photo of the fish and under the title of the “Swarm Intelligence” article.

 

In short, the editors of WELT KOMPAKT insinuate that besides telling robots how to think and how science might create other artificial designs, swarm intelligence might better explain how a small minority of educated and convicted pacifists and religious leaders in East Germany in 1989 were able to pull off the first peaceful revolution in Central European history.

 

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

Any comments? i.e before the Wall falls down?

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTES

Bush Senior to meet Kohl and Gorby in Berlin,

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20091021-22725.html

 

 

 

 

Dear USA Congressmen and Senators,For over half of my adult life, I have been without insurance in the USA.

Dear USA Congressmen and Senators,

For over half of my adult life, I have been without insurance in the USA.

I have been properly diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrom, fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, arthritis, & adult attention deficit. Can you imagine how much I have to worry and chase after health care while trying to keep working fulltime and over time?

Is one of over a million members of MomsRising, I am writing to urge you to vote YES on the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962).

All women and their families need coverage that delivers the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford, regardless of their employment or family status. For the millions of mothers who aren’t eligible for job-based coverage because they work part-time or because they are full-time caregivers for their children, this need is especially critical. The Affordable Health Care for America Act will provide much-needed help to families by offering financial assistance for premiums and capping out of pocket costs.

Fixing the economy and fixing the nation’s health care system are inextricably linked. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this bill will reduce deficits by at least $30 billion over ten years. This bill is fiscally responsible and desperately needed by the 46 million people in America without health insurance and the many millions more who will lose their insurance when they lose jobs or become sick.

Please support our nation’s families by voting yes on the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962).

http://momsrising.democracyinaction.org/o/1768/questionnaire.jsp?questionnaire_KEY=848

Sincerely,

Kevin Stoda
USA

The McClatchy News Service has put out a wonderful series of written and audio-visual reports on the apparent crimes and deceit of Goldman and Sachs

The McClatchy News Service has put out a wonderful series of written and audio-visual reports on the apparent crimes and deceit of Goldman and Sachs, who have benefitted so much from Federal bailouts even though it had safely extricated itself from the worst forms of usery in the housing market between 2002 and 2007.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/77852.html

“Why did blue-chip Goldman take a walk on subprime’s wild side?” reveals how GS listed the bad paper at AAA in the Cayman islands even as the value tumbled in the USA.

McClatchy investigative reporter, Greg Gordan, stated the following:

“Well, I think what we really wanted to know is how did Goldman Sachs get out when nobody else did? And so, we looked and tried to reconstruct what happened in 2006 and 2007, looking at the SEC filings that Goldman made, which is a trick in itself, because when these Wall Street firms bought mortgages from subprime lenders, they put them into trust accounts, but you can’t really find the trust accounts in the SEC files unless you know what the name of the trust accounts are, or you get very lucky kind of rummaging through the files. So, at any rate, we tried to reconstruct what happened.”

“And what we discovered is that Goldman sold $39 billion in securitized subprime mortgages and other risky mortgages that it had purchased itself, and it turned into bonds—and it turned them into bonds and sold them off to pension funds and insurance companies and foreign banks. And the question was, OK, so if Goldman—how did Goldman get out so safely?”

“And, of course, we all know that when the government bailed out the American International Group, the giant insurer, last fall, a year ago last—a year ago in September and then in the ensuing months, that there was a sort of a payoff to all of the firms that had pending insurance-like contracts known as credit default swaps. And these are sophisticated and complex bets that Wall Street firms and others have secretly made in a dark market for at least well over a decade, I believe, but certainly in escalating fashion in recent years.”

“So Goldman, in 2005 and 2006, began to place these swap bets that would, you know, make money for Goldman or hedge its risks if the housing market turned down. At the same time, Goldman was selling off these bonds to pension funds and others, and it did not disclose that it was betting the other way, not on the very same securities, but on very similar securities. Certainly, if its bets, secret bets, paid off, that meant that the value of these bonds was going to go down.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/4/sachs

Here are some other links from McClatchy

How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash

Goldman left foreign investors holding the subprime bag

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/329/story/77844.html

Mortgage crisis shows why financial regulation is needed

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/309/story/78026.html

PROPOSAL FOR RESEARCH IN GERMANY on the LOVE LANGUAGES OF GOD proposed and likely needed

KEVIN STODA KURZEXPOSE DOKTORANDENSTIPENDIEN zum THEMENFELD MIGRATION und RELIGION

 

My two M.A.s are in Political Science and in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. That means I have a great deal of background and training in working with peoples of other cultures and have focused most of my adult life on working to help others to improve their language skills and cross-cultural awareness and relates skills. In addition, as a historian in my younger days, I had focused on Western European History but later became a universalist with a strong background in IPE, international political economy.

 

Prior to my coming to Germany to teach in January of this year, I had worked in Kuwait or the Middle East  for six of the prior 9 years. During that time, I not only taught and trained with Arabs and Muslims from all walks of life and age levels (and gender), but I was also an active participant and presenter, for example at the AWARE CENTER in Kuwait, a non-profit organization, which promoted cultural and religious exchanges between East and West.

 

http://www.aware.com.kw/html/default.asp

 

I should add here, that Kuwait is a much more multi-cultural land than is Germany currently.   For examples, roughly half the population is Muslim and Arab, but at least half of the Arabs are not Kuwaitis.  (Arabic and its related dialects is spoken in nearly 40 countries worldwide.) Likewise, there are living in Kuwait South Asians, who make up approximately one-third of the national population. (The Indian Rupee was the currency of exchange in Kuwait till its Independence after 1959.)  Other migratory groups in Kuwait are smaller but mixed—Western Europe, North and South America, as well as Southeast and Far East Asia, and Africa.   (My wife, whom I met in Kuwait, is Filipino.) Officially, only Ibrahamic (or Abrahamic) faiths are permitted in Kuwait, but unofficially–and to a great degree fairly tolerated under the Kuwaiti regime–are the following:   Baha’is’, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and various other faiths.  (The Greeks had also worshipped their Gods in Kuwait on the Isle of Ikarus, now called Failaka.)

 

One of my more popular presentations and sources of discussion for Muslims, Christians and other faiths in Kuwait at the AWARE CENTER and in some local church communities was based on the ideas outlined by Gary Chapmen in his “Love Languages of God” metaphor.

 

http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/

 

The “love languages” metaphor was first developed for counseling purposes, i.e. counseling amongst men and women, teens and adults and others in North America some decades ago.  As with many driving metaphors on building interpersonal and intra-group relationships (such as John Grey’s “Venus and Mars” metaphor or Daniel Goleman’s concept of “Emotional Intelligence, i.e. among peoples of different religious and cultural backgrounds) ,Chapman’s “love languages” is fairly holistic and certainly can be used as a core area for building common understandings within a variety of settings, and among peoples of many different faiths.

 

http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

 

My interpretation of the “Five Love Language” metaphor is a essentially the same as that advocated by the biblically oriented Chapmen. However, unlike Chapmen, who saw “love languages” as a Christian-specific metaphor to be applied in Western faith settings only, I explored initially in Kuwait the cross-over to Islam.

 

Later, I discussed the “love languages” content with Buddhists and Baha’is.  These peoples of other faiths, too, found sufficient common overlap. Reading any of Gary Chapman’s books (or even by simply viewing his own website), one can gain a brief and important introduction into what his five love languages metaphor is all about. We learn that the five love languages of man are identified as (1) Words of Affirmation, (2) Quality Time, (3) Gift Giving, (4) Acts of Service, and (5) Physical Touch.

 

“Words of Affirmation” acknowledges that using words to affirm the other person is a key way to express love.  There are thousands of ways to express affirmation by words The words may be spoken, written, in prayer, or in a song. To people whose primary love language is words of affirmation, such affirming words fall like spring rain on barren soil.

 

NOTE:  I should add here that each person is born and/or raised to prefer one of the five love languages.  That is, the form of the love language one most naturally uses with others is often a reflection of one’s own manifestation of perceived, needed, or desired format of love (as shown through action, word, and deed in the form of one of the 5 love languages).

Second, “Quality Time” means: Giving the other undivided attention.  Chapmen says, “The important thing is not the activity but that the two of you are together. When you give someone quality time, you are giving him or her part of your life. It is a deep communication of love.”

Third, “Gifts” communicate: He or she was thinking about me. For these people, nothing makes them feel more loved than a gift. “Gifts need not be expensive. You pick up a colored, twisted stone while hiking, …take it home …give it to a ten-year old boy, tell him where you found it, and tell him you were thinking of him…when he is twenty-three, he will still have that stone in his drawer.”

Fourth, “Acts of Service” claims that actions speak louder than words, so doing something for someone else is an expression of love. “To the person whose primary love language is acts of service, words may indeed be empty if they are not accompanied by acts of service. The husband says, ‘I love you,’ and she’s thinking, ‘If he loved me, he would do something around here.’”

Finally, “Physical Touch” recognizes that long before a child understands what the meaning of love is, he may identify love with a touch. “If the child’s primary love language is physical touch, nothing is more important.” Even if, later as a teenager, the very same child pulls back at an approaching hug or kiss, he or she would still like a pat on the back or an arm around the shoulder (or some other physical contact)—otherwise, he/she will feel unloved.

 

Chapmen finds through his decades of counseling that each human being has a preference for one form of communication(or Love Language) when relating to their loved ones or even to their Lord or God.

 

 

DOES IT WORK WHEN APPLIED TO ISLAMIC PRACTICES, TOO?

 

As noted above, Chapmen focused his 5 Love Languages of God on the Christian God, with which he was familiar.   However, I then asked people in Kuwait, could this metaphor be extended to other faiths around the globe—including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Animism, etc.? That is, could the 5 love languages metaphor be applicable across all societies around the globe? Would the insights provided be as obvious in such other societies and families?

At the AWARE CENER, I had often looked at this topic from the Islamic and Arab perspectives– not only through the (from Chapmen) intended Christian perspective.  In doing so, I found it actually quite helpful in discussing commonalities in the belief systems among parents from both Eastern and Western societies and family backgrounds. It was for example, easy to find many Koranic verses and famous Hadiths which supported the views of other Ibrahamic faiths.  These texts could be woven into lectures on the LOVE LANGUAGES OF GOD that I had given fairly easily—adding to mutual awareness and points of contact among cultures.

 

One important Muslim perspective on worship [and man’s relationship to God or Allah] often revolves around concepts and practices, which are well-known as the 5 Pillars of Islam. These 5 main deeds or pillars in Islam are: (1) Declaration of Faith, (2) Five Daily Prayers, (3) Zakat, (4) Fasting, especially in Ramadan, and (5) Hajj.  Most of these five deeds are easy to understand or appreciate as part of worship and lifestyle of prayer or faith. This is because most every religions around the world, including Christianity use fasting and prayer or statements of faith in making communications to their Lord and loved ones within the brotherhood or sisterhood of faith.

 

Likewise, a declaration of faith in Islam could be correlated to a baptism or a public announcement/confirmation of one’s faith before church congregation. Finally, the five daily prayer rite means that at five specified times each day, a Muslim will carry out prayers.  Meanwhile, “The Hajj” is the most famous and most highly practiced form of pilgrimage in the world. It involves a journey from any corner of the planet to Mecca via Medina carried out once in believer’s lifetime. Finally, “Zakat” refers to acts of charity and tithing.

Most importantly, each of these Five Pillars of Faith (or deeds) in Islam provide perspectives on or interpretations through which the five categories or love languages of God coincide. Recall thosse five love languages: (1) Words of Affirmation, (2) Quality Time, (3) Gifts, (4) Acts of Service, and (5) Physical Touch!

 

The prayer 5 times a day in Islam is certainly a physical act, i.e. related to the 5^th language above.  Likewise, the giving of Zeikat or alms is certainly an example of either the 3^rd or 4^th languages (or both).  The Haj also manifests a mix of all five love languages in all its elements.  Similar is the time of fasting in Ramadan.

This hypothesis concerning the transferability of the Love Languages of God metaphors came from my own observation of Islam, i.e.  as a Christian observer who has lived in and traveled in a dozen Islamic lands. As noted above, when I presented on the Love Languages of God and discussed their content in a vary mixed audience of males, females, old, young, Christian, Muslims, and others in Kuwait, I discovered an immediate embracing of the metaphors by the many different participants, especially in how the metaphor(s)  provided a common or basic of understanding among the participants.

One interesting facet of looking at man’s relationship to the Almighty (and to his relationship to others in his world) through love languages is that the process frees man from his ethno-religious trappings to some degree while analyzing what his relation to God is.  In other words, it provides an objective framework to describe and share subjective experiences. In other words, traditional religious baggage–which may either prescribe or proscribe what a man must do in his faith or religion, can be eliminated from a good part of the discussion. One focuses primarily instead on the relationship of God to individuals—and/or how God and the believer (or the community of believers) communicates or relates to God and others.

 

WEAK AND STRONG POINTS OF “Love Languages” METAPHOR

Chapman’s weakest point seems to be that he fails to readily admit that some people might have several love languages—not necessarily just one or primarily one. On the other hand, the metaphor of 5 love languages seems to apply well to relations among men, women and children of whatever nation or family.

 

The metaphor continues, according to Chapmen and my research to date:

(1) God speaks all 5 love languages, and
(2) Man can learn to speak more than one love language and can learn to appreciate it when the others, including God, communicate to him in another love language as well.
(3) Moreover, Chapman concedes, there are also many dialects of the 5 love languages by which man can relate to others or his Lord.

 

The important point is that upon gaining a self-awareness of these languages and one’s own preferences, one can grow as a human being and relate to others in one’s family and nation more successfully.

DETERMINING YOUR PERSONAL LOVE LANGUAGE

According to Chapmen, to determine one’s own personal love language, one should carry-out a relatively straight forward task. One simply needs to ask oneself these questions:

(1) How do I most express love to other people?
(2) What do I complain about most often?
(3) What do I request from others most often?

Amazingly, here—in answering these 3 questions–one is often quickly determine what their primary love language is.  Alternatively, one can take the questions to friends and loved ones to gain helpful feedback if encountering difficulty identifying your primary love language.

NOTE: Sadly, when I tried this, I came up with 5 different answers depending on which facets of each of the three questions I focused on. As well, those friends, whom I have met with and discussed the questions with, were unable to provide perspective on which of the five love languages is my primary love language.  Nonetheless, the majority of people I have interviewed find it relatively easy to narrow their own love languages to one or two.  (This enables them, in turn, to note what they are weak in or need to consider working on when dealing with loved ones and others.)

This trouble in determining my own love language is, in a way, to some degree the more troubling aspect for some reviewers of Gary Chapman’s metaphor of love languages.

On the other hand, I personally have attention deficit, which likely makes it hard for me to focus on all aspects of these simple 3 questions in determining what my primary love language is. (Nonetheless, I realize from my own international and intercultural life experience that some persons, like myself, quite likely consistently use a variety of dialects of the five love languages. These languages overlap one or more other love language. In short, having lived in nearly ten nations and having traveled in more than 100 lands, I likely often love a bit more multilingually than the average person.)

RESEARCH FOR GERMANY—DETERMINING ONE’S LOVE LANGUAGE WITH GOD

According to Chapman, how one person talks to or communicates with God is basically answered by the same questions as noted above:

(1) How do I most express love to God?
(2) What do I complain to God about most often?
(3) What do I request of God most often?

Again, personally, I have realized that answering these 3 questions was not especially of much help to me in determining my primary love language with the Almighty. Through having spent my time meeting different peoples and worshipping in different environments over three decades, I have likely acquired a multiplicity of dialects in more than just one primary love language.

 

On the other hand, almost half the people I know manifest the same love language to the Almighty that they manifest to their loved ones and to others.  Nearly, all the people I have met have been able to identify which primary or secondary manifestations of love are to their Lord.

Still, I need to hone my skills in a plurality of love languages. As a matter of fact, we all do.  Chapmen assumes that awareness of the language preference of oneself is just a starter, i.e. when we are talking about the global need to communicate to others and the ALMIGHTY our love.  For example, you might be weak in any particular one of the five love languages at various times in some corner of your life or another.  Therefore, you should be prepared to try to improve your language skills simply to make your communication with the Lord (and others in faith) more fulfilling.  Likewise, improving one’s skill in another love language can only help you to get along and love other humans more.

 

My proposed research would be to attempt to develop a variety of new perspectives on this metaphor of LOVE LANGUAGES OF GOD to create a network of bridges between the myriad of German citizens and migrants in Germany today.

 

PHASE 1:                              Develop a series of lectures for different religious communities

in Germany, especially in North Rhine Westphalia.  This is not intended to be exhaustive but simply a representative locations and communities will be sought out and contacted.  Some initial educational material and questionnaires can be developed and used during this phase.

 

PHASE 2:                              Develop questionnaires for surveying a larger representative

body concerning love languages for others and love languages

of God—and how these manifest themselves in family, society,

and business.
Both Phases 1 & 2 can be done simultaneously—and may continue into Phases 3 & 4.

 

PHASE 3:                              Revise/create more didactic materials to bridge what has

been learned or acquired so far in first phases of research

in Germany.

 

PHASE 4:                              Create and try out role plays, games, and political/social

Experiments, which demonstrate trends in behavior and

attitudes and how negative trends in society may be handled or how positive trends may be further supported through awareness and political/social/religious/economic education.

 

 

WORKING HYPOTHESES:

 

Hypothesis 1:  Chapmen’s Love Language metaphor is useful across faiths for education, awareness, and mutual understanding.

 

Hypothesis 2:  Chapmen’s Love Language metaphor is useful within groups and peoples of a single faith for education, awareness, and mutual understanding.

 

Hypothesis 3: Increased awareness of common and weak or strong  areas of love language improves individuals relationship to a greater or larger non-faith-community.

 

Hypothesis 4: Increased awareness of common and weak or strong areas of love language improves ethnic group’s relationship to a greater or larger non-faith- or lesser non-in-group community.

 

 

 

 

Wiesbaden Integration Office Equals Secret Society of Germany????

Sehr geehrte Petitionsausschuss Landtag Hessens

Ich danke Ihnen, aber ich bin seit Juli (oder frueher, insbesonderes seit Mai) 2008 fast total Ahnungslos im Bezueg den erforderlichen Nachweise über einen gesicherten Lebensunterhalt, wessen mir von dem Integrationsbehoerden/Visum oder Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden in den letzteren Zeit angeblich erwartet wird.

Hier sind eine Liste von den verschiedenen Faellen, die zeigen Kommunikationsinkompetenz Seiter des Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden in 2009.

(1) Insgesamt habe ich keinen einzigen genemigte Brief von dem Integrationsbehoerden/Visum oder Auslaendersbehoerden im Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden in den letzten 4 1/2 Monaten nimmer direkt von mir fast kein mehr Information angefordert.
(3) Im Beiden September und Oktober 2009 bin ich zu der Sachverarbeiterinnen in dem Bueros der Integrationsbehoerden und Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden gegangen. Beides Mal hat den Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden mir gesagt, dass Sie nichts mehr von mir brauchte.
(4) Ich habe auch pro Email und muendlicherweise von der Sachverarbeiterinnen in den letzeren Zeiten ( September und Oktober 2009) mehrmals gefragt, ob ich noch etwas zusenden oder vorbeibringen soll.
(5) Stattdessen habe ich nur mehrmals den Antwort muendlich bekommen, dass der Entscheid bleibt Offen bis dem der Petitionsausschuss ihre Verfarungen beendent/vollendet haette.

Dieser ganzen Zirkus habe ich seit Monaten hin und wieder miterlebt.

(6) Zusaetzlich bin ich von der Sachverarbeiterinnen bei dem Integrationsbehoerden/Visum–oder Auslaendersbehoerden–im Wiesbaden in den letzten 2 Monaten mehrmals muendlich informiert, dass der Remonstrierungsprozess (in Kuwait angefangen schon am Ende Juni 2009) auch darauf wartete, dass der Petitionsausschuss den Verfahren beenden sollte, bevor den deutschen Botschaft in Kuwait einen Anwort auf Ihren Fragen an den Wiesbadener Integrationsbehoerden/Visum erhalten kann.

Ja, es ist Kafkaesque.

Im moment bleibe ich Ahnunglos, “was die da wollen”, da ich schon mehr als hunderten Seiten von Papier und Kopien an den Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden (und ueber Kuwait) in den letzten 7 Monaten gesendent haben.

(7) Ich sollte es Ihnen weiter erwaehnen, dass im ganzen Monat Julis 2009 die Behoerden in Wiesbaden mir pro Email geschrieben hat, dass ich ihnen keinen mehr Emails senden sollte. (Die Sachvererarbeiterin des Visums meiner Frau hat mir schriftlich geschrieben und gebitten, dass ich Ihr gar nichts senden soll. Sie mente, dass ich alle Kopien nur an den deutschen Botschaft nunher weiter senden sollte. Ich bin natuerlich Ihren Anweisungen gefolgt.)

(8) Auch heute und gestern habe ich weder Brief noch email von dem Beamten in Wiesbaden erhalten.

Soll ich nun den Petitionsausschuss die Beweisse meine Erben und Verdienst senden, da die Integrationsbehoerden/ Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden in den letzten 7 Monaten wenig Vertrauen verdient haben? Ich bin bereit Ihnen beim Petitionsausschuss alle emails und Kopien zusenden. Sagen Sie mir nur das Wort.

Ich glaube insgesamt BeratungsKompetenz und anderen Kommmunikationsproblemen laufen ueberfuellt bei den Integrationsbehoerden/Visum (Auslaendersbehoerden) im Wiesbaden in den in 2009.

Im Allem weiss ich, dass nicht nur meine Frau und ich Schwierigkeiten habe.

Ich habe diesen inkompetenz beim Handeln mit anderen auslaendische Kunden in Wiesbaden miterlebt. Deswegen bin ich bereit, zusaetzlich zu meiner Unterrichts taetigkeiten in Hessen, eine Teilzeitstelle als Unterstuetzer Auslaender (und als Ausbilder fuer besseren Kundendienst beim Integrationsbehoerden/ Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden) taetig zu sein.

Ich sende einen Kopie dieses Emails an den deutschen Botschaft, da offentsichtlich seit Juli 2009, (laut ihrem Brief Unten) das Integrationsbehoerdamt (oder Auslaendersbehoerden) im Wiesbaden in den letzten 4 Monaten niemals (oder kaum) mit dem Botschaft richtig kommuniziert hatten, nachdem der Remonstrierungsprozess im frueh Sommer angefangen ist.

Danke fuer Ihre Zeit und Ihre Bemuehungen fuer Gerechtigkeiten und Uebersicht bei “a very secretive agency which handles visas in Wiesbaden”.

Ihr,

Kevin Stoda
who does not no what papers are still awaited from me by the mysteriously operating “Integrationsbehoerden/Visum oder Auslaendersbehoerden im Wiesbaden”
________________________________________
AW:
Sehr geehrter Herr Stoda,
in der Bürgersprechstunde am vergangenen Montag wurde Ihnen eine Nachfrage bei der Ausländerbehörde der Stadt Wiesbaden bezüglich des Stands des Einreiseverfahrens Ihrer Ehefrau zugesagt.
Der Sachstand stellt sich wie Folgt dar: Nach Auskunft der Ausländerbehörde haben Sie bislang den für die Erteilung eines Visums erforderlichen Nachweis über einen gesicherten Lebensunterhalt nicht erbracht. Gegen die ablehnende Entscheidung der zuständigen Auslandsvertretung (Botschaft) läuft eine Remonstrationsverfahren.
Es kann Ihnen daher nur empfohlen werden, sämtliche für die Erteilung eines Visums erforderliche Unterlagen (Nachweise über ausreichende finanzielle Mittel) vorzulegen.

Press and Secrets: Even when People are OUT Political Correctness Dominates in German Press

Press and Secrets:  Even when People are  OUT Political Correctness Dominates in German Press

By William Walker, Kuwait

 

Since as early as 2000, the new German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle,  has been one of the three or four most-well known gay politicians in Central Europe.  The Free Democratic (FDP or Liberal) Party leader, Westerwelle, took his party to an unprecedented electoral success in September of this  very year.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,651688,00.html

 

This last weekend, Westerwelle’s party signed an agreement to co-lead the German national government for the next for years with Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU coalition.  For the first time in years, Westerwelle’s appointment had brought criticism to his preferred gender relationships here in Germany.  Fore example, it was highly questioned by some circles whether the foreign minister of Germany would be accepted in all international circles.  For example, one newspaper noted that in the Middle East Westerwelle would be looked upon particularly askance, i.e. as representative of the nation state of  Germany.

 

That was an interesting focus of critique when one considers that the more important matter or critique of the appointment of  Westerwelle is that he has had  little to no background in foreign policy making. [On the other hand, many of his predecessors the Foreign Affairs Office in Germany, including Hans Dietrich Genscher (FDP) and Joshka Fischer (Greens), had entered their office as Minister of Foreign Affairs with little to no experience in foreign affairs either.]

 

My perspective, after having lived in the Middle East for nearly a decade, is that whether one is gay or not has little effect on leadership there.  Accordingly, the King of Oman, Sultan Qaboos, has been openly gay for decades and no big deal is made in the press reports about his ability to carry out national or foreign affairs. [Naturally, the press is to some degree censored everywhere.]

 

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=102358&sectionid=351020101

 

On the other hand, it is surprising that more open discussion does not occur much either in the press in the Middle East or Germany about such topics.  Perhaps the subject is just as taboo in Germany as Germans perceive it is elsewhere.  [Self-cencorship about biases is another sort of censorship under a politically correct banner.]  In short, German critics [of a choice of leader or foreign minister]  need to understand world politics a bit better before they criticize other cultures and their perceived stereotypes of them.