[deutschland] reuters berichtet über günter grass

Nach dem Bekenntnis von Günter Grass, als Jugendlicher Mitglied der Waffen-SS gewesen zu sein, hatten polnische Politiker gefordert, dem Nobelpreisträger die Ehrenbürgerschaft von Danzig abzuerkennen. Wider Erwarten gibt der Stadtrat diese Anstrengungen nun auf.

Danzig - Völlig überraschend verzichteten die im Stadtrat von Grass' Geburtsstadt dominierenden Konservativen auf einen Antrag, Grass die Ehrenbürgerschaft abzuerkennen. Der Chef der konservativen Partei Recht und Gerechtigkeit (PiS) in der Region Danzig, Jacek Kurski, sagte, ein Antrag zur Aberkennung der Ehrenbürgerwürde hätte im Stadtrat wohl keine Mehrheit gefunden.

Es war die erste Sitzung des Gremiums nach dem Bekenntnis von Grass, mit dem der Literatur-Nobelpreisträger heftige internationale Diskussionen über seine Rolle als moralische Instanz ausgelöst hatte. In Polen hatten Kurski sowie der polnische Ex-Präsident und Anführer der Gewerkschaft Solidarität, Lech Walesa, die Front der Grass-Kritiker angeführt. Walesa hatte seine Kritik an dem 78-Jährigen jedoch zurück genommen, nachdem Grass in einem Brief an Danziger Ratsmitglieder erklärt hatte, warum er seine SS-Vergangenheit so spät enthüllt hatte.

Trotzdem lassen die die nationalkonservativen Politiker nicht locker: Sie wollen den Literatur-Nobelpreisträger zur nächsten Ratssitzung einladen, damit er dort persönlich zu seiner Vergangenheit Stellung nimmt. "Ein Wort der Entschuldigung würde die ganze Diskussion abschließen", sagte der PIS-Politiker Kazimierz Koralewski.

Allerdings fand der Antrag der Partei, Grass zu einer Diskussion einzuladen, im liberal dominierten Stadtrat keine Mehrheit. Auch die Forderung nach einer Entschuldigung von Grass lehnten die meisten der Danziger Ratsmitglieder ab. "Günter Grass muss sich für nichts entschuldigen", betonte Maciej Lisicki von der liberalen Bürgerplattform.

[economy] for and against free markets

Today I took a car from the side of the road, having agreed a price for the journey to the centre. How legal this is over here I’m not sure but it’s free enterprise, it’s a voluntary transaction between two parties and it was win/win for both today. There are many such transactions over here and it’s not going too far to state that without them, the economy would implode.

Everyone’s making his little on the side. The babushki lined up along the footpath selling jars of berries, jams and salads – that’s free enterprise, as are the million or so deals done by mobile telephone day and night. Today, in front of our house, a car pulled up, then another, two boots/trunks were opened and the deal was done.

I have always operated in a free economic zone. Years ago I got it into my head to follow the family business and get into screen printing sports t-shirts for clubs and so I hawked my wares around the city, made contacts and the big boys waited till simple economics snuffed me out.

Along the way I met a guy who produced trophies for clubs and we combined forces. I had two girls working for me, plus a day job. Big mistake. Suddenly, mindboggling orders came in and we had neither the infrastructure, the talent nor the time. That was the end of the business.

And yet I strongly believe in market forces and feel that in a free economy such as we have [on one level] over here - anything is possible. However, there are distinct negatives, which I never really saw until I got into ‘trade’. Arguments against a free economy do exist and include:

Full text here.

[far-east] the sun rises yet again

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe will succeed Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September.

Veterans of World War 2 are a vanishing breed and yet memories will be rekindled by current events.

The agenda will be ultra-conservative, nationalistic and with a pro-US foreign-policy agenda. Abe's policy goals also include promulgating a new constitution, forging a thinly veiled alliance of Asia-Pacific democracies to counter China, advocating a stronger alliance with Australia and India, authorizing the use of force for defense against aggression directed at Japan and authorizing more active participation in international peace-cooperation activities and the establishment of a permanent law to enable overseas deployment of SDF troops.

Japan has an army of about 240,000 troops and sustains one of the world's biggest defense expenditures, explaining that the SDF is not military. Nationalism is on the rise but the only way to officially run a military is through ‘collective defence’. As long as there is at least one other party and deployment is labelled ‘manoeuvres’, then it is deemed constitutional.

The presidential election is supposedly set for September 20.

based on the article by Hisane Masaki [yiu45535@nifty.com.]

[pour la france et l’angleterre] n’oublier pas diana

Des fleurs ont été déposées et un office religieux a été célébré jeudi à Londres en mémoire de la princesse Diana pour le 9e anniversaire de sa mort à Paris, le 31 août 1997, à l'âge de 36 ans.

L'hommage à Diana s'est tenu, comme chaque année, devant les grilles du palais de Kensington, qui fut sa résidence après son divorce en 1996 avec le prince Charles, l'héritier de la couronne d'Angleterre.

Les deux fils de la princesse, William et Harry, "se recueillent en privé et à leur façon", a indiqué le service de presse de leur père. William, 24 ans, et Harry, 21 ans, sont tous deux élèves de l'école d'officiers de Sandhurst.

William, plus avancé dans sa formation, est actuellement en congé, tandis que Harry suit une période d'entraînement dans le Dorset (sud de l'Angleterre). Charles et sa seconde épouse Camilla étaient pour leur part au château écossais de Balmoral, résidence d'été de la famille royale britannique.

Devant le palais de Kensington, l'association Diana Circle a appelé à faire du 10e anniversaire, en 2007, "une journée très particulière" au Royaume-Uni, et suggéré qu'une messe pour Diana soit dite à la cathédrale Saint-Paul. Une centaine d'anonymes ont assisté à la messe dite en plein air.

"Le souvenir de Diana ne s'est pas évanoui", a assuré dans son sermon le père Frank Gelli, curé d'une paroisse voisine.

Les anniversaires de la mort de Diana ne font plus la Une des journaux, à l'exception du Daily Express (835.000 exemplaires) qui, tous les lundis ou presque depuis 468 semaines, affirme à la Une que la mort de la princesse est suspecte.

Diana est morte en même temps que son compagnon Dodi Al-Fayed et que le chauffeur Henri Paul, quand leur limousine a percuté un poteau sous le tunnel du pont de l'Alma. Le garde du corps, Trevor Rees-Jones, fut gravement blessé.

le Monde

[cruising cat] for the middle-aged husband and wife without a great deal of money

I was surprised, I can tell you, by the response to the earlier catamaran article. I just included it out of sheer bloodymindedness, 'cause I like it.

1 No, it’s not yet in production. Basically, where I live in the East, there’s lots of wood but no foam core. Traditional materials and skills abound.

2 It began as a reaction against sailing being taken out of the ordinary man’s reach – to hell with that, I thought. OK, the plastic fantastic sits higher in the water and has flatter profile and less rocker, so I just designed more draught into it and allowed for the 100 extra pounds.

3 I’m not getting any younger and yet I still want a turn of speed. Yet I must take into account my slower reaction time and lessening strength. Result – two masts, a spread load, wishbone boom taking all the pressure, underslung rudders, shoal keel, wide beam, strictly two double berths for a couple and their friends or a couple and children, helmed by the husband alone.

4 The longer mast is 19’ and there’s nothing the hubby can’t carry by himself. The beams are demountable with ease and so the hulls are the only consideration, using a winch on a trailer.

5 Sails I envisage as tanbark Dacron, the hulls painted below, topsides in natural golden wood.

6 I strongly defend the gaff. Even the C class has been trying to compensate upwind for what comes naturally to the short gaff. We just became too ‘upwind obsessed’ and had to create kites to take us downwind. No need on this boat.

7 The stability you can just imagine. With a 12.5 to 1 WL ratio, it will move. The only entry to the hulls is amidships, from the inside gunwhales and it’s wide and roomy in the hulls.

8 It’s woody. You remember Garwood and Chriscraft? This is a throwback to the 40s and 50s but with more speed and stability. 250 sq ft on 23ft is fine, as long as you don’t run an engine.

9 Yes, there is a 29ft , a 34ft and a 43ft version for the sea. The 34 and 43 have slightly more rocker. Your questions are fine, Steve. More detailed view on the weekend when there's more time.

[middle-east] meanwhile, in iraq

If the Iraq troubles stopped now, it's greater woes would continue. This is an abridged version of a Reuters article:

"The prices of everything have gone up but the salaries have stayed the same," said Nada, a 33-year old laboratory assistant who works for a branch of the health ministry on a monthly salary of 200,000 dinar (71 pounds). Dire security conditions are a root cause of the problem, according to the country's central bank chief.

"Inflation is a function of the real sector, not the monetary sector ... wages, insurance cover, the smooth delivery of goods. Security is the important factor," Sinan al-Shabibi said in a recent Reuters interview.

U.S. officers say rising sectarian bloodshed has pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war. However, Jeremiah Pam, U.S. Treasury Attaché to Iraq, points to the debt forgiveness from Western creditors that Iraq won last year to ease its re-entry to the world financial community.

It also has the backing of the International Monetary Fund, which agreed a $685 million (361 million pounds) standby credit in December 2005 and said earlier this month that Iraq remained on the right track. But the IMF also had some stern words about prices, spiraling by over 50 percent year-on-year, and warned that conditions risked getting worse.

Corruption is another major problem. An audit sponsored by the United Nations last week found hundreds of millions of dollars of Iraq's oil revenue had been wrongly tallied last year or had gone missing altogether. Business is being done, but it isn't often very productive in nature.

Despite the world's third largest oil reserves, a well- educated work force, an abundance of water and other valuable resources, Iraq's economy was in a mess even before the first bomb was dropped in the 2003 war. A decade of sanctions after the first Gulf War compounded the shortcomings of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party economic model of heavily centralised state control.

At border crossings, officials from half a dozen ministries are involved and if an Iraqi Army unit wants fuel from the oil ministry, rather than rely on the Americans, it requires 14 signatures. A new cabinet proposal to ease chronic fuel shortages by opening the energy sector to private imports has gone nowhere and black market petrol prices have surged.

Logic dictates that it must come down to one of these things - either the [Iraqi] horse won't run, the US is flogging a dead horse, it's powerless in making any inroads against the Arab backdrop, it's not serious about wanting peace or else it does not, itself, control the main agenda in the region. The main agenda may have been set by an entirely other body.

[far-east] 2020 vision needed for chinese hegemony

I’m reprinting this Melbourne Age August 21, 2006 article on China, by Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, as another take and an authoritative one, on the rising hegemony of that country:

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union 15 years ago, there has been only one megapower — the United States. For the first 10 years, the dominance of the US was seen as a great opportunity to rebuild the global institutional architecture in favour of a more democratic, rational and equitable system.

The United Nations, partially crippled during the Cold War by superpower rivalry, acquired a new lease of life and UN peacekeeping operations multiplied.

In the past five years, however, US hegemony has been viewed much less favourably with opinion polls across the world recording unprecedented levels of distrust of the US Governments throughout the world.

Full text here.

[film festival] venice launches attack on rome

In an interview on Italian television, 63rd Venice festival director Marco Mueller explained, in reference to the Rome festival which will follow it next month:

"It [Rome] has taken nothing from us. Some films, which neither Cannes nor ourselves wanted and which we were finished viewing at the end of March, have finally found an Italian destination. That's really pleased us because in that way we have avoided acrimony from people we turned down. Rome can have them."

Mueller's comments were immediately blasted by Rome festival organisers Giorgio Gosetti and Mario Sesti as "an incredible offence to cinema and to the extraordinary authors who have decided to bring their work to Rome. Over the last few months we have always referred to the Venice Mostra with respect. And we will continue to do so. We reiterate that Venice mustn't fear Rome but only its own mistakes through arrogance and isolation."

Rome’s festival includes Martin Scorsese, whose latest film is set to open the Rome festival of film on October 13, according to Italian media reports. Rome's mayor Walter Veltroni also pointed out that the Eternal City was able to host next month's event without calling for "one lira from the state".

"In Italy we always live with a terror of things new. There's an instinct for conservatism which is one of the reasons why our country finds it so difficult to compete abroad," said Veltroni, who has repeatedly praised Venice, the world's oldest film festival.

The dispute, coming just before Brian De Palma's adaptation of James Elroy's novel The Black Dahlia opens the festival tomorrow night, has put Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli in an awkward position and has called for an end to the rivalry between the two festivals, saying they "complemented each other."

Personally, it seems to me that the fault is all on Venice’s side, which knows its festival has lost some of the limelight over recent years. Mueller’s comments perhaps reflect his Sud-Tyrol origin.

AFP and the Age

[colour schemes] the culture of brown

You will have noticed that I've gone over to browns and sea-green aqua and part of the reason comes from this article by 'About'.

Brown is a natural, down-to-earth neutral color. It is found in earth, wood, and stone. Brown is a warm neutral color that can stimulate the appetite. It is found extensively in nature in both living and non-living materials.

Brown represents wholesomeness and earthiness. While it might be considered a little on the dull side, it also represents steadfastness, simplicity, friendliness, dependability, and health. Although blue is the typical corporate color, UPS (United Parcel Service) has built their business around the dependability associated with brown.

The color brown and its lighter cousins in tan, taupe, beige, or cream make excellent backgrounds helping accompanying colors appear richer, brighter. Use brown to convey a feeling of warmth, honesty, and wholesomeness. Although found in nature year-round, brown is often considered a fall and winter color. It is more casual than black.

Shades of brown coupled with green are an especially earthy pair, often used to convey the concept of recycling or earth-friendly products. Very dark brown can replace black, adding a slightly warmer tone to some palettes. Brighten brown with a mellow yellow or rusty orange. Go smart but conservative with a mix of brown and deep purple, green, gray, or orange-red.

Although blue is the typical corporate color, UPS (United Parcel Service) has built their business around the dependability associated with brown.

Culture of Beige: Beige has traditionally been seen as a conservative, background color. In some cultures, beige garments might symbolize piety or simplicity.

Traditional Saudi Arabia dress include a flowing floor-length outer cloak (bisht) made of wool or camel hair in black, beige, brown or cream tones.

[sailing] double-hulled small cruiser concept

For such a 'tubby' looking craft, there were years of thinking and abandoned designs before this one was finalized. If sailing's not your thing - kindly pass to the next post.

Trimarans, wing sails with twist, H105 foils, Eppler codes - I abandoned them all for low-tech but not as low tech as Wharram.

I settled on 23 feet as the optimal length for one-up and continued the low-aspect, low-tech throughout. Ease of sailing for a middle-aged duffer was the idea - hence two self-tacking mains, rather than the western fractional rig.

Equally, proas and crew-number intensive balancing acts were right out. Reefability, repairability, ease of sailing, speed, open deck lightness vs overnight accommodation - these were the considerations.

If this is remotely interesting for you, have a look at the sketch and notes.