My Government

The people who run this country never fail to amaze me. Meaning all well, they pass a federal law that prohibits, once and for all, the introduction of tuition fees for universities - in blatant violation of the Grundgesetz. The decision to rule that law unconstitional must have taken about ten minutes: one minute to come to a conclusion and nine to finish up the coffee.

This ruling must have caused mind-fogging extasy among the opposition parties. How else could you explain that Bavarian secretary of education, Thomas Goppel, saw fit to make the amazing statement that all it took for university students to pay the targeted tuition fees was to simply spend €100 less each month? I beg your miniscule pardon? If I spent about ten Euros less a month, I would not be eating, or paying my rent. The mere fact that the one man who is supposed to know about the situation of students is even able to think in such terms indicates that this country is in trouble.

You are given to wonder which is actually worse: the arrogance that drives the opposition, the incompetence that drives the administration, or the ignorance that drives both.

Chinese Gods?

Well, not Chinese, exactly, but still. And not gods, either, just god.

Currently my head is just spinning.

Milton's God - the absolute ruler. Makes this prediction that something bad will happen, and of course, once he makes that prediction, it has to happen because if it did not, he would be a liar, and he just can't have that, can he? At the same time he foretells that someone will have to suffer, and of course it is not going to be him. Nonono, he's got his son thingy for that. Mind you, he's meaning well, though.

Blake's godhead - Well, now this is where it gets tricky. There is Los, there is Urizen, there is Luvah, Nobodaddy, Urthona, Rintrah, and whatnot. Of course, they all have their emanations, they all are god and satan and each is their own vortex, don't forget that. They mean well, too. Sometimes. Unless they are too busy crying over one another. One thing this Blakean god thingy is not is any kind of authority.

Pullman's god - a bit of both, except for the meaning well business. And God, aka Authority, who turns out to be just another angel who just claimed to be that allmighty one Milton was wetting his pants over, just goes and dies of old age.

Then, of course, there are the gnostic writings to remember. And the apcryphal writings. And lunch - hey, I forgot about lunch. And about breakfast. Isn't it time this thesis finally got written and handed in?

Chinese Dogs

In China They Eat Dogs

What a wonderful movie that is. A bank clerk in sunny Denmark has to face the fact that sometimes good intentions can procuce bad results, that sometimes good intention can produce good results that simply happen to be bad for others. So out he goes to rectify some of the bad things he unwittingly caused - only to go from bad to worse. In a somewhat anti-climactic scene he realizes that good and bad, sinner and saint are just empty categories that are given meaning differently by different individuals. After all, in China, they eat dogs.