Satire / History about 30 minutes

Educate yourself: Do you know who Harriet Tubman was? I didn’t!

Mark Steel once again delivers a brilliant and highly amusing historical lecture. Can we clone this guy and send at least one to every school?

The Green Movement – digging up dirt on the industrial lifestyle for 30 years …

The Green Movement started to flex it’s political muscles about 30 years ago here in Europe and became a serious power for change.

Alternative ideas have been around since the early 1960’s (like the Gaia hypothesis) and developed into a serious, but tiny political idea in the early 1970’s like the Club of Rome. 1968 saw worldwide student protests, but it took another ten years to transform these ideas and many splinter groups into a (more or less) coherent political movement called the Greens.

Strangely enough it was Germany, were the Green Movement had it’s first major impact – a country hardly known for revolutions and a big hunger for change.

The Green Party (Die Grünen) was the last big political Grassroots movement here in Germany (no, I don’t count the Re-Unification as such).

It was born out of a mixture of the strong peace movement (fuelled by the rage against stationing the Pershing II missiles in Germany), the 1968-Student-Protesters turned activists in the 1970’s  and the new alternative green culture (who fought for example for years in huge battles against the Police to stop a new terminal for the airport in Frankfurt).

Damn Hippies … oh wait – these are real politicians and they actually achieved something.

Compared to traditional parties the Greens really cared about pollution, saving the planet and new global social ideas. They were the first to advance the ideas to protect nature as well as the consumers on the table and later into law.

The Greens were part of a bigger cultural change in Germany (and later worldwide) – that was quite different from the extreme Left (like the Baader-Meinhof-Group) and re-emerging Neo-Nazis from the right.

We are not the old mainstream – we are going to be the new green mainstream …

Even "normal" people saw the need to fight pollution and simply get better food for their families.

The 1970’s and 1980’s showed us that Science and it’s industrial application were far from perfect.

Scandals like Pesticides in Mother’s Milk and most of all Chernobyl disaster showed us that these dangers were real and could no longer be ignored.

The Green Movement also introduced new and not so new esoteric ideas and thinking to the mainstream.

Slowly, but surely things like crystals for improving your health, your very own homeopathic emergency kit or working with "energy" became acceptable even to "non-hippies".

Are there any crystals that can heal stupidity?

Suddenly "old & ancient" ideas made a big comeback – often with a huge commercial campaigns behind them. We saw an explosion of things like Yoga Studios, Feng Shui Consultants and Ayurveda Shampoos.

The Green movement had always a pagan and slightly naive and childish "connection to mother nature", but smart old fashioned and new alternative companies made huge amounts of money with the people’s desire to be "greener" and less "violent" to nature (and save some cute animals on the way).

The Media always loved Green Protests, because they sell and make everybody feel good.

Although the Green movement (often in cooperation with activists from groups like Green Peace) presented hard scientific facts to underline their arguments, the Green Mainstream also cultivated a new form of pseudo-religious Green Guilt or Doomsday panic.

Like the Catholic Church (and many other religious institutions) the Green Movement as well as Green Companies have exploited the Green Guilt and Fear for the Environment.

The Mass Media also loves to exploit the Green Doomsday Fears.

One of the most overused images of green campaigns.

It’s easy to make fun of the Green Guilt and some of the stupider fringes of the Green Movement. Overall it was and still is a great political power that changed a lot!

Just walk in any Western Supermarket and you find many green / organic products that are usually way better than processed food.

Also environmental laws to protect nature have vastly improved in the last 30 years – thanks to the Green Movement and many crazy Green Campaigns. Conserving our Bio Diversity has become a mainstream agenda.

The Sunflower – symbol for Green Politics.

Globalization (and the protest against it) and Fair Trade are important topics thanks to the Green Movement (and no thanks to many so called Socialist Parties, who were slow to spot that "trend").

The whole topic of sustainable growth (LOHAS) is also born out of Green Ideas.

The Green Revolution has still a long way to go. There is still a lack of strong Green Parties in big countries like US or UK. Countries like China or Russia hardly care about Green Ideas, although they slowly adapt some measures to fight climate change.

Let’s see how much the Green Movement can achieve till 2030? The first 30 years were pretty impressive …

A lot of convenience food is basically repacking production lower quality production surplus to look more appealing to the consumer.

With Fish Finger (ever seen a fish with hands?) are like chicken nuggets or any other fried and battered / breaded: you don’t see what you eat.

Till the mid 1950’s Britain and several European Countries still were on food rations. During the war years people got used to live on small portions.

With the "Wirtschaftswunder" more and new food arrived: convenience and processed food containing loads of sugar, fat and salt. People loved all that rich stuff after so many years of living lean and mean.

This was the beginning of the obesity epidemic we are suffering now.

Click image for more moonlight.

Billions of years our faithful companion led a quiet life, but 40 years ago humanity invaded the moon.

This giant step for mankind was actual mostly symbolical and technological. The American Space Program resulted in many new technologies (ball pen etc.) that improved our daily lives.

I suspect it will take another century before humanity really gets a grip on the moon with permanent settlements and mining operations (yes, the moon has many rare elements that earth doesn’t have).

I admire the old explorers like the Vikings. It is incredible tough even "just" to follow the coast – but it’s sheer insanity to go places like Iceland or Greenland.

You don’t have any shelter on these boats, no toilet, no private space and no fridge. You are stuck with your mates often for weeks and months in confined space.

No surprise these Vikings were so pissed off and aggressive when they landed …

The western cult of Hygiene has made some strange twists and turns. The Romans had public baths and a highly developed culture around cleaning and grooming themselves.

In the Middle Ages Europe somehow lost it’s cleanliness, although bathing houses were still around.

With the industrial revolution and medical science cleanliness was back in town. Especially the discovery of germs and the resulting insights lead to a whole new industry producing detergents, soaps and cleanings products.

But cleanliness has become a hysteria for many modern housewives. But sterile environments are also bad for us: our immune systems need dirt to train and harden itself.

In a strange twist we get sick from being to feeble to battle of the very germs we try to clean away.

We humans are sometimes very stupid.

For one elegant Lady there were dozens of servants and hundreds of workers working hard to produce that glamorous lifestyle.

So the days are already getting shorter – on the 21st June is the longest day of 2009. I wouldn’t know it since our weather is so shitty and skies are almost constantly grey. Instead of summer we have constant autumn. Everybody has their finest sweaters on …

With that kind of weather I won’t dance naked around the block like a proper Hippie to celebrate the old rite of passage.

After the first great depression all western nations tried to protect themselves from such horrible busts by creating checks and oversight for financial markets.

After World War II it was the consensus of western nations to share the wealth between workers and companies, because both Fascisms and Communism were popular with the "small people" because they promised more rights and equality for workers.

After just forty years of prosperity in the western nations regulations and social systems were discarded in favour of so called "free markets". The lessons of effective government were as much forgotten as the lessons of the great depression.

After just 25 year of new greed and globalization the next horrible bust exploded in all our faces – thanks to the "free markets", Maggie and Ronnie.

History will repeat itself, because every generation loves to play with fire and ignore the wisdom of their forefathers.

Is it 20 years already? Wow! Nice video from the EU and a nice reminder that Freedom is not "free".

Documentary about Japan’s secret Empire. Enjoy!

Charming and insightful documentary by Stephen Fry about the machine that changed the world.

Highly interesting documentary about how the "western style" of warfare developed and how it engulfed the world with it’s bloody style.

Some interesting insights in this documentary. This is not just for military buffs, but anyone interested in history.

In the Communist era the Soviet Block was far behind in digital technology. So their own computers were celebrated as important achievements and part of the regular worker’s parade.

We still parade our computers in the West – or better say globally, because we love to show our status symbols (so called Digital Penis or Pussy Tech).

Click image for a bigger Schmusefest.

German women went absolutely bonkers over the Führer. They fainted, screamed and moistened when he was around or when he spoke.

Hitler was a rockstar in his "better years" and women craved his attention.

Until his very end Hitler was single and had quite a following. But the Führer himself was neither very progressive nor charming to the Ladies.

Women voted in droves for Herrn Hitler.

A detailed essay on Hitler and women can be found here.

You sure know winter is coming when the Cows come down from the Alps in Bavaria and Austria. This is called Almabtrieb.

It’s a nice tradition (some images here), but still more than just a tourist attraction like the Oktoberfest.

Political debates are hardly a modern invention – I think it started already with Caveman arguing who will lead the clan.

In Athens all males could simply join the political debate themselves, by simply turning up and speaking.

With ever bigger Kingdoms and Nation States being there personally didn’t work anymore. Sure you could visit your national parliment and maybe listen to the talks.

With the invention of the newspaper and journals political speeches were once again accessible to the masses. If you read some of Abraham Lincoln oral masterpieces you would be surprised who eloquent, deep and highly educated these speeches were. Simply amazing – I bet most modern journalists are hardly able to write the way Lincoln could simply speak to his voters.

But most importantly: speeches were reduced to words. What the candidates said was more important than their looks, gestures and personality.

Even with the advent of radio this didn’t change much – apart that you could ‘read’ more the personality of each candidate by listening closely.

Today the debates are no longer debates anyway – because the format has devolved into a simple phrase exchange.

But the candidate himself is the message today – not what he / she is saying. It’s all about image, not about content.

The Glyptothek is one of the great treasures of Munich. I love to go there and enjoy these old Greek and Roman statues.

Here are some snaps and videos I made of the Statue of the God Apollo. Don’t be fooled by his feminine looks …

It is amazing how early we started to use colors in our human culture. We don’t know when we started painting our bodies, but we have some old cave paintings that date back 32.000 years! I am pretty sure we experimented before that with smearing mud and charcoal into our faces.

Already in the bronze and iron ages we had mastered creating most colors and coloring our cloths and daily items. Items found in the fertile crescent showed an early love for making stuff more colorful. Greeks and Roman actually went color crazy.

Ranging from simple fashion statements to political or religious affiliation – color is more important then ever.

Video / 55 Minutes / Spiegel TV

Especially in our modern mass media world and after the 2008 Beijing Propaganda Olympics it’s scary how little TV has changed – or that the Nazis already had figured out the basics of TV brainwashing.

Scary.

China likes to boast of it’s long lasting culture and like to claim that they have been at the front of civilization for thousands of years (nice timeline here) (although India has actually the oldest records of culture and cities).

Anyone remotely interested in history and technology knows that the old Chinese seem to have invented almost everything way ahead of Europe or were never far behind: paper, printing, movable type, crossbows, gunpowder, rockets, compass, blast furnace and cast iron – to name just the most important ones.

China with it’s man- and brainpower seemed to be destined to take over the world, but they didn’t. Instead tiny Britain conquered the Chinese giant with ease …

So what went wrong with the old Chinese?

Read the rest of this entry »

Mr Newman is a brilliant and explosive mixture: comedian, historian, anarchist and activist. His show about oil is intelligent and insightful. You might learn more about this dark substance and it’s political influence than watching a whole year of CNN and the Discovery Channel together.

And it’s bloody funny too!

Don’t forget to visit Mr Newman’s great website and buy some of his stuff?!

*Update: This is a repost, because the old video was deleted.*

BBC News: NASA’s 50 years in Space (Videos)

The dogmatic search for a better future was the driving force of the 20th century.

Let’s go back to the Age of Enlightenment that was driven by new insights and lofty goals for humanity. It was the time of colonialism, conquests and the true start of globalization. Although under the brutal direction of European Colonials the world was for the first time completely explored, connected and aware of each other.

Excuse me, we are nice colonists and are looking for a place to build a spaceport.

But it was also the Age of Humanitarianism, when we realized that King & Country were not eternal and that humanity needed better tools and ideals to guide itself into the future. One outcome of this new Idealism was the French Revolution as well as the United States of America – a totally new way to govern modern societies.

Compared to the former religious societies our Forefathers suddenly had “mental space” for a different and better future. Under Religion and Royals there was no “improving” future as we know it today. There was only the continuation of yesterday until Judgement Day. Any change driven by human ideas was considered blasphemy and unnecessary – since everything was nicely arranged in God’s perfect plan.

Move aside God – we need space for the future …

The Industrial Age of the 19th Century with it’s incredible social and scientific achievements where the ultimate proof that “God was dead” (Nietzsche) and that the nation state transcended Religion and Kings. The eternal plan was scraped, finally there was a Future and the mental space for real progress.

Already in the early Industrial Age authors like Jules Verne established many modern visions of a technological future: underwater cities, submarines, flying machines, rockets and interplanetary travel. All based on the work of daring scientists and engineers.

New political and social sciences radically changed western cultures: Psychology, Socialism, Mass Production, Consumerism and Individualism transformed the old Democracies into new powerful nation states.

He didn’t built any rockets, but he was one of many important fathers of modern science.

All new political ideas like Socialism, Communism and a new modern (Market) Capitalism were based new insights and sciences available at the time. Even Fascism got many of it’s ideas from science, especially from Darwinism and most of all Social Darwinism – which lead to the dreadful science of Eugenics.

Small side note: Social Darwinism has actually not invented by him – it was rather based on Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton work. It was first just a very convenient way to justify Colonialism and the Class System.

Sorry, your nose is too big to be an Aryan or an Astronaut.

Nevertheless – Science was established as the ultimate method to build a better life. Our future depended on better science and technology. Our Forefathers were delighted and enchanted by all the exciting new discoveries.

Already in the 1920’s and 1930’s a new kind of Futurism swept through America, Europe and some parts of Asia. Freud’s psychology fascinated people all over the western world and the although the great Depression was a terrible event for everybody modern Consumerism started to thrive in that time too.

Modern Consumerism always demanded High Tech.

But there was also a cultural Futurism (not to be confused with the Italian Futurism). Thanks to new forms of Mass Media (especially comics, radio and cinemas) science fiction presented a glorious technological future to the masses. Hero’s like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and many others showed the way to the Future – first as comics, then as radio serials and later as movies.

Interestingly enough: early science fiction (in literature and on the screen) adopted Democracy and Humanitarianism as the ultimate choice for any lifeform. Technology and science as tools to archive the best way of life. This message is ultimately portrayed in the movie “Things to Come” (1936).

I am sure evil Ming’s military never faced NASA’s budget cuts!

The terrible conflicts of ideas first dismantled the old colonial powers in WWI and WWII. Both wars showed that science and technology was the ultimate weapon. The future belonged to flying machines, atomic power and electronics.

Many weapons invented in WWII are still stranger then (science) fiction like flying saucers. But the Cold War fathered even stranger and more futuristic machinery: like the atomic bomber, killer satellites or stealth fighters.

The space age already started with Wernher von Braun and his terrible V-2 rocket in 1942. But this was really only the beginning …

There is one small reason for NASA’s existence: Sputnik.

In the 1950’s rockets and spacemen were already deeply embedded into the public’s mind through science fiction and popular science. But on October 4, 1957 it all become real with the launch of Sputnik. Hardly a year later the Americans founded NASA on July 29, 1958. The space age finally took off with full power.

Once again the chimps got there before us!

From the 1950’s till the mid 1980’s popular culture and media was shaped by science, technology and science fiction. From Sputnik to the Space Shuttle and from Captain Kirk to Star Wars – it was the Age of happy technology and unlimited possibilities.

Star Wars 1977 not only my personal turning point in my childhood …

Every boys dream was to become an Astronaut. Being smart or even being a Scientist was considered cool. Building stuff that actually worked was even cooler. Toys like chemistry sets, rocket kits or ever complex LEGO machinery were best sellers.

Totally out of fashion today: being an Astronaut. Not as cool as being a Rapper or Supermodel.

I was born 1967 – I was two years old when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Too young to really watch it. But I do remember that I watched every bit of “space anything”, science fiction or scientific program on the telly.

Until the mid 1980’s my generation grew up on a positive vision of the future, science and technology. Sure – already in the 1970’s the Hippies questioned our modern lifestyle – but it was not until the start and success of the green movement that this positive and uncritical vision was replaced with a more darker, distrusting and often strangely esoteric vision of the future.

I am still in my heart a spaceman, but I guess that era is over.

Amazingly to me we seem to learnt very little or nothing from the oil crises of 1973. Especially because in the 1980’s the oil prices went down like a rock and everything seemed fine.

Europe always had higher taxes on petrol, so we naturally built and drove smaller cars. The US went “el gigante” as usual and feel in love with SUVs, Hummers and other thirsty vehicles.

So from 1973 to 2008 we wasted precious THIRTYFIVE years to seriously reduce our global consumption and develop alternatives. It is simply amazing how much time we wasted fiddling around with small stuff instead of pushing ahead.

The idea of peak oil (maximum production followed by gradual decline) is hardly new itself – a certain Mister King Hubbert published this very idea in 1956. And that oil isn’t a renewable resource has been bloody obvious since we built cars.

Once again: it is shocking that all these high-tech countries like USA, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, etc. have so little to show so little progress in terms of energy independence.

Germany is currently world leader in solar and wind energy, but we hardly use these technologies. Instead all industrial nations talk about using extensively atomic power. But it is once again a short term solution, since the world’s reserve of plutonium ain’t that big either.

It all comes down to money, not intelligence or logic in the end. We could have done more, but we didn’t. We still are doing not enough. We will only speed up our development when the price of petrol rises even higher and our laziness will become unaffordable.

But I am seriously afraid that we won’t even react than. Instead we simply “agree” with lesser comfort and don’t mind millions of people starving, because oil is also important for food production.

Cultures and civilizations are not very good in reacting to slow changes and threats. They simply adapt without overcoming the threat.

So peak oil might also imply peak civilization – unless some egghead saves our global asses from decline with a brilliant invention. But our culture won’t be the first nor the last to maybe disappear, slowly rott or “sleep away” …

We regard Newton as one of the greatest scientists of all time: he discovered Gravity and invented calculus. Each one of these would already secured him a place in history.

But he was obsessed with religion and exploring "Gods" creation – he actually wrote more theological texts than scientific ones.

In his time science and religion were still closely tied together. Every professor in Cambridge had to become a Minister in the Church of England – he hated that idea and was freed from that duty.

My hometown and birthplace München just celebrated it’s 850th birthday last weekend. It is certainly not the oldest city in Europe – more like a middle aged one.

Watch, learn and weep.

The more I learn about western Imperialism, the angrier I get. Here are some more bit about American involvement in Iran.

Jason has sent me this amazing article about the varieties of cotton and how we are once again losing bio diversity thanks to greed.

Like white breed or white sugar people simple want they goods "clean" and in a virgin-like colour. But brown bread like brown sugar is usually much better or at least equal to the white – often bleached – industrial stuff …

Locks are a pretty old human invention – they go way back 4.000 years. This also tells us a lot about the human mind, it’s greed and it’s need for security. But a lock without a door or a box is useless – to this invention is connected to a whole chain of other technologies.

One invention always depends on other inventions.

The year is 1921 and Margaret Gorman from Washington D.C. is the first Miss America. Compared to today’s beauty standards she isn’t very sexy: she lacks full lips, hips and tits. I guess back then people only cared for inner beauty and a good character?!

I am sure she also wanted World Peace!

Borders are not a human invention, but natures. All kind of animals mark and defend their territory against their own and other species. Just ask your own pets.

But it’s time for the human race to transcend borders and the idea of the Nationstate altogether. The flow of people, ideas and goods should be free. That was one of the basic ideas behind the European Union – and still is.

Crossing borders has become much easier in the last 100 years, but there are still too many walls and fences up. And we still have some nations totally isolated from the global community. But the number of international trade and travel agreements are slowly growing and the openness is expanding.

Let’s hope that in 100 or 200 years most borders only exist on paper.

Gladiators – typical Roman? Nope, Etruscan. Aqueducts – that must be Roman? Nope, Etruscan again. Many things we would consider as typical Roman culture has been ‘invented’ by the Etruscans – a culture that long existed in the north of Italy before the Kings of Sandals arrived/prospered.

Too bad only so little remained of this great culture. I guess it was completely assimilated by the Romans after they had defeated the Etruscans?

More? Wikipedia (not much to read there) and mysteriousetruscans.com (highly recommended)

We credit many advances in our world to inventors – but many of them did not invent anything. They rather developed and improved existing ideas into a new technology. The steam engine didn’t pop up in Mr Watt’s head overnight – it was a long process of trial and error in cooperation with other engineers.

Anyone out there still believes there will be a ‘two state solution’? Instead Israelis and Palestinians should work on becoming one state TOGETHER with equal rights – maybe even adopt a new name for that state to find some common ground.

But this is just a fantasy, because neither side will be willing to give up it’s nationalist and religious claim to the Holy Land.

Instead the Palestinians will dissolve more and more – and simply become minorities in other Arab countries like Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. Which has happened since 1946 anyway.

Before the industrial revolution there was plenty of work for everyone – not always pleasant and nice – but there was a huge demand for muscles and brains.

Mechanization took most low level, handcraft, agricultural and production jobs away, so humans had to train to be smarter than machines to keep working. Most of today’s productive work (= producing goods) is done by machines, while we have kept and expanded the so called service industries and administration (and boy, do we love our bureaucracies).

I wonder: when we run out of oil and don’t come up with an adequate supply of alternative fuel if human work might be back in demand? There are six billion of us and not everybody fancies burger flipping and filling out forms & papers.

A new study shows that ancient humans used shoes already 40.000 years ago. Wow! So before the Iron Age we had the Shoe Age. So maybe the woman’s obsession with shoes goes way back …

I am always amused when some of my American friends come to Europe and get lost by our chaotic cities and streets. If you look at schematics above of American and European cities you immediately see how straight and orderly most cities in the new world are. Very different to the of thousand of years old and “organically” grown Euro cities …

Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes

From Wikipedia:

An insight into the history of nuclear power. In the 1950s scientists and politicians thought they could create a different world with a limitless source of nuclear energy. But things began to go wrong. Scientists in America and the Soviet Union were duped into building dozens of potentially dangerous plants. Then came the disasters of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl which changed views on the safety of this new technology.

More? Pandora’s Box Series

Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes

From Wikipedia:

A look at how former Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah set Africa ablaze with his vision of a new industrial and scientific age. At the heart of his dream was to be the huge Volta dam, generating enough power to transform West Africa into an advanced utopia. But as his grand experiment took shape, it brought with it dangerous forces Nkrumah couldn’t control, and he slowly watched his metropolis of science sink into corruption and debt.

More? Pandora’s Box Series