New Cranach Press

WikiLeaks: Awkward U.S. search for the right action!

2010-12-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

Von Frank Patalong / SPIEGEL Online

In Großbritannien wartet Julian Assange auf seine Auslieferung an Schweden, US-Justizminister Eric Holder will ihn am liebsten selbst vor Gericht bringen. Es gibt dabei nur ein Problem: Es existiert kein passendes Gesetz, gegen das der WikiLeaks-Gründer verstoßen hätte - noch nicht.

"Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht" ist der Titel einer populären deutschen Komödie und Ausdruck einer ausgeprägten Machermentalität. In den Vereinigten Staaten läuft gerade eine lebhafte Debatte darüber, ob eine derartige Denke angebracht ist, wenn es um so sensible Themen wie den Schutz von Amerikas Geheimnissen und Sicherheitsinteressen geht, aber auch die Meinungs- und Publikationsfreiheit. Anstoß ist, wie könnte es anders sein, die Debatte um WikiLeaks und dessen Gründer Julian Assange.
Den haben Amerikas Konservative in den vergangenen Wochen als Staatsfeind Nummer eins ausgemacht. Anklagen sollte man ihn, forderten etliche, erschießen sollte man ihn, meinten andere sogar - vielleicht im Wissen darum, dass es bisher kaum eine Grundlage für eine Anklage gegen Julian Assange oder WikiLeaks gibt?
Denn genau so ist das: Amerikas Top-Juristen zerbrechen sich die Köpfe, wie man eine wasserdichte Anklage gegen Assange begründen könnte. Zwar begrüßte Verteidigungsminister Robert GatesAssanges Verhaftung als "gute Nachricht". Am Sonntag legte US-Präsident Barack Obama nach und nannte WikiLeaks-Aktivitäten ungewöhnlich deutlich "verabscheuungswürdig". Das alles aber sind noch immer persönliche Wertungen: Ansprüche an Großbritannien, Assange in die Vereinigten Staaten zu überstellen, haben die USA noch nicht angemeldet.
Auf welcher Basis auch? Der letzte Versuch, das 1917 verabschiedete US-Anti-Spionage-Gesetz gegen ein Publikationsorgan anzuwenden, das Geheimnisse veröffentlicht hatte, scheiterte 1971. Wie nun im Falle der über WikiLeaks öffentlichgemachten US-Botschaftsdepeschen war dieses indiskrete US-Medium die "New York Times". Der auch um schrille Töne mitunter nicht verlegene US-Senator Joe Lieberman regte deshalb in Rupert Murdochs erzkonservativem TV-Sender Fox an, die "New York Times" gleich mit zu verklagen - wegen Verstößen gegen den Espionage Act. Den will Lieberman ausgebaut sehen um Passagen, die es dem US-Justizministerium erleichtern würden, Assange anzuklagen. Er ist gerade beteiligt an gleich zwei Gesetzesvorlagen mit dieser Stoßrichtung.
Worum geht es hier? Um Schutz? Oder um Vergeltung?
Und er steht nicht allein damit. Peter King, der designierte neue konservative Vorsitzende des Kongress-Geheimdienstausschusses, legte Ende der Woche die "Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination Bill" vor - formell H.R.6506, kurz, knackig und sinnfällig aber einfach "Shield" getauft.
Shield ist ein typischer Fall von "Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht". Die Gesetzesvorlage erweitert die Anti-Spionage-Gesetzgebung um Bestimmungen zum Schutz der Informanten von Militär und Geheimdiensten. Denn das ist einer der stichhaltigsten Vorwürfe gegen Assange und WikiLeaks: Mit der Veröffentlichung der Afghanistan- und Irak-Dokumente das Leben von Informanten in Gefahr gebracht zu haben. Was sollte man WikiLeaks hingegen in Bezug auf die Botschaftsdepeschen vorwerfen? Öffentlichgemacht zu haben, wie abfällig in US-Diplomatenkreisen kommuniziert wird?
So etwas bezeichnet auch Lieberman allenfalls als "schlechtes Bürgerverhalten", aber "ob die damit ein Verbrechen begangen haben", sagte er im Fox-Interview, bedürfe "einer intensiven Prüfung durch das Justizministerium".
Im aufgeheizten Klima der Debatte um die erfolgreichste und umstrittenste Enthüllungsplattform der Welt reichten schon diese Äußerungen, um den Zorn hackender Pro-WikiLeaks-Protestierer auf sich zu ziehen. Mitte der Woche gaben die Server von Joe Liebermans Web-Seite zeitweilig den Geist auf - der Senator war virtuell mundtot gemacht worden.
Mundtot gemacht zu werden, genau das sei hier die Gefahr, warnte am Samstag das Editorial der "Washington Post" - eine Zeitung, die durch die Veröffentlichung der Dokumentation des Watergate-Skandals selbst aufs engste mit dem "Whistleblower"-Thema verbunden ist. Selbst wenn einige der Aktivitäten von WikiLeaks unter dem Espionage Act anzuklagen wären, seien sie andererseits doch durch die Prinzipien der Presse- und Meinungsfreiheit gedeckt. An denen aber dürfe man nicht rühren: Wer Gesetze auf den Weg bringe, um WikiLeaks zum Schweigen zu bringen, treffe damit auch die Medien.
Die Pressefreiheit als Kollateralschaden?
Wörtlich argumentiert das namentlich nicht gezeichnete Editorial: "Das zu tun würde den Austausch von Informationen kriminalisieren und verantwortungsvoll agierende Medienunternehmen gefährden, die ihr Material prüfen und den Schutz ihrer Quellen ernst nehmen und ihre Methoden überprüfen, wenn Leben oder die nationale Sicherheit in Gefahr sind."
Vielmehr solle der so leicht zu verletzende Espionage Act sogar zusammengestrichen oder gleich abgeschafft werden. Der Staat habe zwar das Recht und die Pflicht, seine Informationen zu schützen, aber eben nicht auf diese Art. Es sei richtig gewesen, den Soldaten anzuklagen, der die US-Dokumente an WikiLeaks weitergegeben habe. Ansonsten aber solle man die Vorgänge zum Anlass nehmen, die eigenen Lecks abzudichten ( auch das versucht die Obama-Administration natürlich).
Eine nachvollziehbare Perspektive, wenn man die historischen Vergleiche zieht, die zu ihrer Zeit von Kritikern ebenfalls als Verrat gedeutet wurden: Die Veröffentlichung der sogenannten Pentagon-Papiere durch die "New York Times" wird als einer der entscheidenden Faktoren gesehen, die zur Beendigung des Vietnamkrieges führten; die Watergate-Veröffentlichungen der "Washington Post" führten zum Rücktritt des US-Präsidenten Richard Nixon, der sich bei diversen Missbräuchen seiner Macht inklusive des Abhörens politischer Gegner hatte erwischen lassen.
"Whistleblowing", der Verrat eigentlich geheimer Informationen, gehört also zu den Grundlagen investigativer Erkenntnisgewinnung. Die aber ist eine Grundbedingung dafür, dass Presse gegenüber der Macht überhaupt als Regulativ wirken kann: Wären Medien dazu verdonnert, nur noch offiziellen Verlautbarungen zu folgen, wäre die mediale Abbildung der Welt vielleicht schöner und harmonischer, aber auch langweilig und verlogen.
Was dabei herauskommt, wenn der Staat so eine Art von Einfluss auf Medien gewinnt, kann man sich in Ländern mit autoritär geprägten Regimen ansehen: Nordkoreas Presse beispielsweise jubelt noch über Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen, wenn die Bauern verhungernd auf den Feldern kollabieren. Die kritische Funktion der Presse, die darauf beruhen muss, Wahrheit und Intentionen hinter politischen Äußerungen und Aktionen zu hinterfragen, wird nicht von ungefähr als ein Grundpfeiler der Demokratie gesehen.
"Whistleblowing" ist mitunter unverantwortlich, oft aber wichtig und richtig
Das ist der Grund, warum viele Medien ein ambivalentes Verhältnis zum Thema WikiLeaks haben: Man erkennt an, dass sich WikiLeaks in vielerlei Hinsicht verantwortungslos gezeigt hat, aber auch, dass die Aktivitäten von WikiLeaks viele Medienschaffende an ihre Aufgaben erinnert haben - und nicht selten selbst Informationen von höchster Relevanz öffentlich machten. Denn die Website kann echte Verdienste für sich verbuchen:

2007 veröffentlichte sie die "Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta" zum Umgang mit Gefangenen im US-Lager Guantanamo - und machte bedenkliche Praktiken öffentlich, die teils deutlich dem Völkerrecht und der Genfer Konvention widersprachen;
Scientology: 2008 veröffentlichte WikiLeaks die kruden internen Glaubensdokumente der Sci-Fi-Sekte und munitionierte damit deren Gegner;
British National Party: 2008 dokumentierte WikiLeaks die Mitgliederliste der faschistischen britischen National Party und zeigte unter anderem die Durchdringung der Polizei mit BNP-Mitgliedern - illegal in Großbritannien;
Palins E-Mails: Im US-Wahlkampf 2008 hackte die Anonymous-Gruppierung den privaten E-Mail-Account der republikanischen Vize-Präsidentschaftskandidatin Sarah Palin - und zeigte, dass die ihren Privat-Account für Dienstgeschäfte nutzte, um die gesetzlich vorgeschriebenen Dokumentationspflichten für Amtsträger zu umgehen. Der Veröffentlichungskanal: WikiLeaks;
Der Minton-Report: 2009 veröffentlichte WikiLeaks eine interne Studie des Rohstoffhandelsunternehmens Trafigura über die schädlichen Gesundheitsauswirkungen seiner Müllentsorgung in Afrika (17 Tote, ca. 100.000 Behandlungsbedürftige). Trafigura hatte die britische Zeitung "The Guardian" mit juristischen Mitteln erfolgreich an der Publizierung gehindert, WikiLeaks war dagegen nicht zu stoppen;
Climate-Gate: WikiLeaks veröffentlichte die E-Mail-Korrespondenz führender Klimaforscher, der man entnehmen konnte, dass keine Seite in diesem Meinungsstreit über die globale Erwärmung mit ganz astreinen Methoden arbeitete.

Man könnte weitermachen. Man könnte WikiLeaks' Veröffentlichungen in Kategorien wie "gesellschaftlich wertvoll" oder "für den Frieden gefährlich" sortieren. Man würde schnell feststellen, dass all das oftmals eine Frage der Perspektive ist - und sicher auch eine der Zeit. Der Verrat von heute mag das Verdienst von morgen sein.
Dass die US-Regierung Julian Assange gern vor einem US-Gericht sehen würde, ist nachvollziehbar, aber mit geltendem amerikanischen Recht offenbar kaum zu begründen, so verlockend es auch sein mag, Assange zurzeit noch in britischem Gewahrsam zu wissen. Die beiden Staaten pflegen ein vereinfachtes Auslieferungsverfahren, das eine Überstellung wahrscheinlich unproblematischer machen würde als im Fall Schweden. Dort aber sieht sich Assange tatsächlich mit einem konkreten Vorwurf (der Vergewaltigung) konfrontiert, der justiziabel wäre, wenn er sich bestätigt (und der nichts mit WikiLeaks zu tun hat).
Vielleicht würde das WikiLeaks stoppen, aber andere, ähnliche Strukturen entstehen längst: OpenLeaks, die WikiLeaks-Alternative unter Beteilung des ehemaligen WikiLeaks-Sprechers Daniel Domschelt-Berg, wird am Montag Online gehen. Das Phänomen WikiLeaks ist eine Nebenwirkung der weltweiten Vernetzung, wenn man so will, und die will niemand stoppen. Ansonsten scheint es "im Rennen zwischen Geheimhaltung und Wahrheit unvermeidlich, dass die Wahrheit am Ende gewinnt".
Wer das gesagt hat? Rupert Murdoch, der Besitzer von Fox: dem Sender, der wie kein anderer gegen WikiLeaks agitiert.

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WikiLeaks: Is This the Transparency Obama Promised?

2010-12-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/obama-wikileaks-im-concerned-11260389

Legal Analysis by Kevin Bankston

When it comes to Wikileaks, there's a lot of fear out there on the Internet right now.

Between the federal criminal investigation into Wikileaks, Senator Joe Lieberman's calls for companies to stop providing support for Wikileaks and his suggestion that the New York Times itself should be criminally investigated, Senator Dianne Feinstein's recent Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and even the suggestion by some that he should be assassinated, a lot of people are scared and confused.

Will I break the law if I host or mirror the US diplomatic cables that have been published by Wikileaks? If I view or download them? If I write a news story based on them? These are just a few of the questions we've been getting here at EFF, particularly in light of many US companies'apparent fear to do any business with Wikileaks (with a few notable exceptions).

We unfortunately don't have the capacity to offer individualized legal advice to everyone who contacts us. What we can do, however, is talk about EFF's own policy position: we agree with other legal commentators who have warned that a prosecution of Assange, much less of other readers or publishers of the cables, would face serious First Amendment hurdles ([1], [2]) and would be "extremely dangerous" to free speech rights. Along with our friends at the ACLU, "We're deeply skeptical that prosecuting WikiLeaks would be constitutional, or a good idea."

Even better than commentary, we can also provide legal information on this complicated issue, and today we have for you some high quality legal information from an expert and objective source: Congress' own research service, CRS. The job of this non-partisan legal office is to provide objective, balanced memos to Congress on important legal issues, free from the often hysteric hyperbole of other government officials. And thanks to Secrecy News, we have a copy ofCRS' latest memo on the Wikileaks controversy, a report entitled "Criminal Prohibitions on the Publication of Classified Defense Information" and dated this Monday, December 6.

Like this blog post itself, the CRS memo isn't legal advice. But it is a comprehensive discussion of the laws under which the Wikileaks publishers — or anyone else who obtains or publishes the documents, be it you or the New York Times — might be prosecuted and the First Amendment problems that such a prosecution would likely raise. Notably, the fine lawyers at CRS recognize a simple fact that statements from Attorney General Eric Holder, the Senators, the State Department and others have glossed over: a prosecution against someone who isn't subject to the secrecy obligations of a federal employee or contractor, based only on that person's publication of classified information that was received innocently, would be absolutely unprecedented and would likely pose serious First Amendment problems. As the summary page of the 21-page memo succinctly states,

This report identifies some criminal statutes that may apply [to dissemination of classified documents], but notes that these have been used almost exclusively to prosecute individuals with access to classified information (and a corresponding obligation to protect it) who make it available to foreign agents, or to foreign agents who obtain classified information unlawfully while present in the United States. Leaks of classified information to the press have only rarely been punished as crimes, and we are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it. There may be First Amendment implications that would make such a prosecution difficult, not to mention political ramifications based on concerns about government censorship.

The report proceeds to discuss the Espionage Act of 1917 and a number of other potentially applicable statutes, followed by an extended discussion (at pp. 14-20) of how the Supreme Court's First Amendment decisions — and in particular the Pentagon Papers case — could complicate such a prosecution. For anyone interested in or concerned about the legality of publishing the Wikileaks documents and the legal and political challenges to a successful prosecution, this CRS memo is an absolute must-read.

Hopefully, this information will help counter much of the fear that our government's so-called "war" against Wikileaks has generated. Meanwhile, we will continue our effort to oppose online censorship and provide additional news and commentary on the ongoing WikiLeaks saga, which is shaping up to be the first great free speech battle of the 21st century. We hope you'll join us in the fight."

Best HGK

WikiLeaks: The secret world view of U.S.

2010-11-28T23:11:00.000-08:00

World map shows where the most dispatches came from

It is a disaster for U.S. diplomacy. WikiLeaks has published more than 250,000 documents from the Washington State Department. They reveal secret world view of U.S.

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HGK

p.s. 1: WikiLeaks plans revelation about US Bank
p.s. 2: International arrest warrant against WikiLeaks-founder
p.s. 3: WikiLeaks now available at http://wikileaks.de/ http://wikileaks.fi/http://wikileaks.nl/
p.s.4: Paypal (eBay) stops money transfers to WikiLeaks
p.s.5: www.wikileaks.ch is back
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Related books:

The best write of my life: If e-literatur's narrative structures change our brains, what happens to our selves?

2010-11-21T02:58:00.000-08:00

New Scientist (p57) 13th November 2010, Dr Sukhwinder Shergill, from the Institute of Psychiatry, has been using MRI scans which consistently show activity in neural areas involved in speech production, comprehension and internal monitoring during silent inner speech. His work coincides with current thought which claims that the left hemisphere is responsible for creating the autobiographical self.

We're hard-wired to turn our lives into stories - how will we cope with the dizzying digital fictions of the future, ask John Bickle and Sean Keating
"We are our narratives" has become a popular slogan. "We" refers to our selves, in the full-blooded person-constituting sense. "Narratives" refers to the stories we tell about our selves and our exploits in settings as trivial as cocktail parties and as serious as intimate discussions with loved ones. We express some in speech. Others we tell silently to ourselves, in that constant little inner voice. The full collection of one's internal and external narratives generates the self we are intimately acquainted with. Our narrative selves continually unfold.

State-of-the-art neuro-imaging and cognitive neuropsychology both uphold the idea that we create our "selves" through narrative. Based on a half-century's research on "split-brain" patients, neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga argues that the human brain's left hemisphere is specialised for intelligent behaviour and hypothesis formation. It also possesses the unique capacity to interpret - that is, narrate - behaviours and emotional states initiated by either hemisphere. Not surprisingly, the left hemisphere is also the language hemisphere, with specialised cortical regions for producing, interpreting and understanding speech. It is also the hemisphere that produces narratives.

Gazzaniga also thinks that this left-hemisphere "interpreter" creates the unified feeling of an autobiographical, personal, unique self. "The interpreter sustains a running narrative of our actions, emotions, thoughts, and dreams. The interpreter is the glue that keeps our story unified, and creates our sense of being a coherent, rational agent. To our bag of individual instincts it brings theories about our lives. These narratives of our past behaviour seep into our awareness and give us an autobiography," he writes. The language areas of the left hemisphere are well placed to carry out these tasks. They draw on information in memory (amygdalo-hippocampal circuits, dorsolateral prefrontal cortices) and planning regions (orbitofrontal cortices). As neurologist Jeffrey Saver has shown, damage to these regions disrupts narration in a variety of ways, ranging from unbounded narration, in which a person generates narratives unconstrained by reality, to denarration, the inability to generate any narratives, external or internal.

How does Gazzaniga's interpreter produce a narrative self? In 2003, one of us (Bickle) suggested that our "little inner voice" is the key. The inner voice may be produced by ongoing activity in language regions of the left hemisphere, both when the products of that activity are broadcast via external speech and when they are silently expressed through inner speech.

One compelling study used PET imaging to watch what is going on in the brain during inner speech. As expected, this showed activity in the classic speech production area known as Broca's area. But also active was Wernicke's area, the brain region for language comprehension, suggesting that not only do the brain's speech areas produce silent inner speech, but that our inner voice is understood and interpreted by the comprehension areas. The result of all this activity, I suggested, is the narrative self.

Since then, much more neuro-imaging data has supported this idea. Sukhwinder Shergill, a psychiatrist at King's College London, has contributed mightily, investigating the neural bases of schizophrenia symptoms, including auditory hallucinations. By generating and monitoring inner speech in ingenious ways, his functional MRI studies consistently show activity in neural areas involved in speech production, comprehension and internal monitoring during silent inner speech. This fits nicely with Gazzaniga's idea about the left hemisphere interpreter's role in creating the autobiographical self.

If we create our selves through narratives, whether external or internal, they are traditional ones, with protagonists and antagonists and a prescribed relationship between narrators, characters and listeners. They have linear plots with a fixed past, a present built coherently on it, and a horizon of possibilities projected coherently into the future. Digital technologies, on the other hand, are producing narratives that stray from this classic structure. New communicative interfaces allow for novel narrative interactions and constructions. Multi-user domains (MUDs), massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), hypertext and cybertext all loosen traditional narrative structure. Digital narratives, in their extremes, are co-creations of the authors, users and media. Multiple entry points into continuously developing narratives are available, often for multiple co-constructors.

These recent developments seem to make possible limitless narratives lacking the defining features of the traditional structures. What kinds of selves will digital narratives generate? Multi-linear? Non-fixed? Collaborative? Would such products still be the selves we've come to know and love?

As heady as these implications seem, we should not get carried away. From a literary perspective, digital narrative's break with tradition will either be so radical that the products no longer count as narrative - and so no longer will be capable of generating narrative selves - or they will still incorporate basic narrative structure, perhaps attenuated, and continue to produce recognisable narrative selves.

Psychological considerations support this point. Narratives, and the selves we construct through them, convey our individual perspectives of "self-in-world". These perspectives include individuals' understanding of how cause and effect works, and so require a temporal ordering of salient events that can be communicated to others. We often convey causal networks that make up our lives in ways that conform to one of the almost universally understood narrative prototypes, be it romantic love, heroic adventure or a sad tale of misfortune. Unbounded digital narratives, unconstrained by familiar temporal, causal ordering, seem psychologically implausible as sources for enduring, communicating selves.

Finally, there's the neuro-evolutionary perspective. Gazzaniga suggests that the rise of the brain's left hemisphere interpreter provides the evolutionary advantage of continued reinforcement of a new capacity for relentlessly hypothesising about possible causal patterns, combined with an older, right hemisphere capacity to make probability-based decisions. As Gazzaniga puts it, "Once mutational events in the history of our species brought the interpreter into existence, there was no getting rid of it."

The ongoing narrative activities in left-hemisphere language production, comprehension and monitoring regions during external and internal speech are with us permanently. New digital narratives might provide novel inputs to the narrative construction of our brains' language regions; but they alone probably can't alter our narrative selves. It is likely, then, that digital narratives - while on the surface changing the face of literature - will in the end be built on the narratives we've always known.

Best HGK

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Releated books & articles

Walther Fuchs, Der Binswanger-Lotmar-Disput über Aphasie (1926-1963), in: Swiss Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, 2007.

"Neanderthals were stupid"

2010-11-14T05:21:00.000-08:00

The brains of Neanderthals were the same size as that of modern humans - but the Neanderthals were stupid as researchers from the Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found out. In my opinion: A throwback to the Homo Sapiens centrism we had before. See

Read instead the following books

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Thomas Demenga, Cello live at KKL, 14. Nov. 2010

2010-11-07T14:02:00.000-08:00

Thomas Demenga

Liebe Freunde und Bekannte
schon wieder ein Konzert, das ganz der Liebe gewidmet ist!
ALL YOU NEED IS...
"L'amour triste"
****************************************************************************
Sonntag, 14. November 2010
18.30 Uhr, KKL, Luzern
****************************************************************************

Antonín Dvorák
Cellokonzert h-moll »
Jean Sibelius
Pelléas et Mélisande »
Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski
Romeo und Julia »
****************************************************************************

Orchester Santa Maria
Solo: Thomas Demenga »
Leitung: Droujelub Yanakiew
****************************************************************************
Alles Liebe - Thomas

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related music

What a race! Zenyatta beaten in a photofinish at Breeders' Cup 2010

2010-11-07T01:05:00.000-07:00

Jockey Garrett Gomez and Blame (right) hold off Mike Smith and Zenyatta (left) to win the Breeders' Cup Classic race on Saturday at Churchill Downs. It was Zenyatta's first loss in 20 career starts.

What a great comeback after a bad start! You need to see at that!
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HGK
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releated books & dvd's

Airbag for cyclists

2010-11-02T05:41:00.000-07:00

Airbag for cyclists

A new helmet from Sweden looks like a fashionable scarf. In case of an accident, a head air bag is placed over head and neck. The smart protection is not quite cheap, but save and good for the hair-style, say the inventors.

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Recommended books & movies:

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“Fritz Kahn – Man Machine” & The Man-Machine album by German electronic band Kraftwerk

2010-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace)

Stuttgart, 1926. Chromolithograph

After years, I’ve been listening the album The Man-Machine from Kraftwerk again. Just great music!

By the way: The title of the album The Man-Machine is a reminiscence to Fritz Kahn’s famous book The Life of Man:

Dr. Fritz Kahn (1888-1968) was a gynaecologist in Berlin and a world-famous popular science writer who illustrated the form and function of the human body with spectacular, modern man-machine analogies. In the 1920s, his magnum opus, “Das Leben des Menschen” (The Life of Man) – a five-volume series – was renowned as a German accomplishment of global repute. In the 1930s, his books were banned and burned by the Nazis, then edited by Kahn’s publisher and reissued as plagiarisms with a superimposed anti-Semitic chapter.
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Recommended books & movies. By free clicking on the Googel ads (blue box) and the book covers of the recommended books and movies from AMAZON store, you support culture!

Picasso - his first museum exhibition 1932, Kunsthaus Zurich

2010-10-31T02:39:00.000-07:00

I have seen the exhibition of Picasso at the Kunsthaus Zurich. It is a kind of reconstruction of the great Picasso Zurich exhibition of 1932. Today, the images of Picasso no longer have the explosive power of 1932, when the exhibition was a scandal. Legendary was the psycho - pathologizing critique of CG. Jung on Picasso. In our exhibition "Paul Klee and the Medicine" we have already mentioned this case. The present exhibition is solid made, but we get no new insights on Picasso.

The reconstruction of the exhibition of 1932 could have been made more consistent. For example the same double hanging of the paintings, Photographic reproductions of the missing works from 1932, who are not shown in the present exhibition, etc.

Nevertheless, the exhibition is worth a look. Above all, the little documentary about the exhibition of 1932.
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Recommended books & movies. By free clicking on the Googel ads (blue box) and the book covers of the recommended books and movies from AMAZON store, you support culture!

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all inclusive ($189): no rooming costs with a 3g amazon kindle

2010-10-30T01:37:00.000-07:00

all inclusive: 3G Amazon Kindle Reader

With a 3G Amazon Kindle Reader, you have free Internet access in major metropolitan centers worldwide. Check wireless coverage.
Amazon do not explicitly mention this possibility of free surfing.
In the Kindle home menu, click on "experimental" and then on "lauch browser. Complex web pages can not be displayed, but for reading emails it's ok.
Try it out.
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HGK

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Recommended books & movies. By free clicking on the Googel ads (blue box) and the book covers of the recommended books and movies from AMAZON store, you support culture!
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"Sneezes in the Rain.": New Snub-Nosed [Photoshop] Monkey Discovered

2010-10-29T04:18:00.000-07:00

image reconstructed by photoshop, based on a Yunnan snub-nosed monkey and the carcass of the newly discovered species. Photo: Thomas Geissmann

Congratulation Thomas (Geissmann)!

The New Rhinopithecus Strykeri Species "Sneezes in the Rain."

While the species is new to science the local people know it well and claim that it is very easy to find when it is raining because the monkeys often get rainwater in their upturned noses causing them to sneeze. To avoid getting rainwater in their noses they spend rainy days sitting with their heads tucked between their knees.

Click here for more information: "American Journal of Primatology"

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Recommended books & movies. By free clicking on the Googel ads (blue box) and the book covers of the recommended books and movies from AMAZON store, you support culture! By the way: One click is not jet a buy, so do not hesitate to click.

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The "No Impact Project": From Idle Accuser to Action Hero

2010-10-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

Inflicting as Minimal a Burden as Possible on the Planet as "No Impact Man"

Man is wantonly plundering the Earth's precious resources and giving only trash and toxic waste in return. Feeling that he was party to this process, writer Colin Beavan took a stand: For 12 months he and his family in New York sought to live without polluting the environment – and experienced more time and happiness along with hard work. see: "No Impact Man"

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Recommended books & movies. By free clicking on the Googel ads (blue box) and the book covers of the recommended books and movies from AMAZON store, you support culture! By the way: One click is not jet a buy, so do not hesitate to click.

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"It is not about my father". A conversation with Richard von Weizsäcker on the role of his father as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs during during the Nazi regime

2010-10-28T04:46:00.000-07:00

Ernst von Weizsacker was sentenced to five years in prison for involvement in the deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz

It is not about my father. What role Ernst v. Weizäcker played in the Nazi extermination machine? A conversation with Richard von Weizsäcker on the peace efforts of his father as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, through its role in the expatriation of Thomas Mann and the then knowledge of the Holocaust. Read the FAZ Interview
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p.s. by the way: The place in Paris, were the Jews were loaded on the trains to the concentration camps was the place, where the new French National Library is located today. See Seebald / Austerlitz
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"The Seven Sermons to the Dead" (1916) by Carl Gustav Jung

2010-10-27T04:45:00.000-07:00

Jung with his wife and children at Château-d'Oex, Switzerland, in 1918.

Today I was visiting Carl Gustav Jung in Château-d'Oex on my way to Vevey. We have talked about his new book, The Seven Sermons to the Dead. Jung gave me a copy of this limited edition.

In appreciation I handed him a bibliophile book from my Cranach Press.

"The Seven Sermons to the Dead", Septem Sermones ad Mortuos, might best be described as the "summary revelation of the Red Book". It is the only portion of the imaginative material contained in the Red Book manuscripts that C.G. Jung shared more or less publicly during his lifetime. To comprehend the importance of the Septem Sermones, one must understand the events behind the writing of the Red Book itself -- a task ultimately facilitated by the epochal publication of Jung's Red Book. See The Making of The Red Book on YouTube.
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koi fish

2010-10-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

Koi varieties

I just fed my Japanese koi fish and carp. Winter is comming because the fish have almost no appetite. Nevertheless it is important that they get enough food for the winter so they survive.

By the way: The word 'koi' comes from Japanese, simply meaning "carp." It includes both the dull grey fish and the brightly colored varieties. What are known as 'koi' in English are referred to more specifically as 'nishikigoi' in Japan (literally meaning 'brocaded carp'). In Japanese, 'koi' is a homophone for another word that means 'affection' or 'love'; koi are therefore symbols of love and friendship in Japan. An example of this is given in a short story by Mukoda Kuniko, "Koi-san".[8]

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Campaign against the Swiss Communists and Art Historian Konrad Farner (1903-1974)

2010-10-26T01:04:00.000-07:00

Swiss Communist and Art Historian Konrad Farner (1903-1974)

Farner joined the Communist Party already when he was 20-year-old. After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Farner and his family were victims of a political hate campaign by people of Thalwil (Zurich), after the Neue Zürcher Zeitung had published their address.

HGK

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Today I met Stefan Zweig in Rüschlikon, Zurich, Switzerland

2010-10-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hotel Belvoir Rüschlikon, Zurich, Switzerland

Stefan Zweig and Frederike Winternitzseiner

Today I met the Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942) in his Swiss exile in Rüschlikon. With his partner Friderike of Winternitzseiner we had lunch at the Hotel Belvoir. Mainly we were talking about his new novel Jeremiah (1917) The drama Jeremiah appears 1918. During WW1 Zweig was engaged in cultural propaganda of Austria and Germany Zweig could then leave in November 1917 military service for 2 months. During this time he held talks in Switzerland. In Switzerland acquaintanceship with Romain Rolland, Hermann Hesse, James Joyce and Ferruccio Busoni. 27. February 1918 World premiere of the play Jeremiah at Schauspielhaus in Zurich. As a correspondent of the Vienna Neue Freie Presse in Switzerland, Zweig went in March 1917 to Rüschlikon for a retreat and stayed there until the end of the ware.
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German can be a great language! The new Goethe Movie

2010-10-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

Miriam Stein as Lotte Buff

Saturday night, I watched the new film on Goethe.

A pleasant costume film with Alexander Fehling as Goethe and the young Swiss Miriam Stein as Lotte Buff. While Moritz Bleibtreu performance as Albert Kestner was unconvincing. However, I can recommend the movie. Nevertheless. German can be a great language! See

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HGK

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"good breasts and bad breasts": My advice to overprotecting parents

2010-10-23T03:15:00.000-07:00

Breastfeeding mother, Marguerite Gerard (1761-1837)

With my godchild, i observed, that the parents do no like to entrust the child to me. Because they fear that I mess up their education standards. But this is a mistake regarding to the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein: "In her object relations theory, Klein argues that 'the earliest experiences of the infant are split between wholly good ones with "good" objects [good breast] wholly bad experiences with "bad" objects' [bad breast] [12], as children struggle to integrate the two primary drives, love and hate, into constructive social interaction. An important step in childhood development is the gradual depolarization of these two drives." Therefore, the contact to different people (good & bad breasts) is very important for a child!

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HGK

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"Shell" houses by ARTechnic architects

2010-10-22T01:50:00.000-07:00

My scouts from Japan have made me aware of The Villa, "Shell" built by the Japanese architectural team ARTechnic in Kitasaku, Japan. Great architecture! Isn’t it? My friend Peter Behrens would have liked it. Best HGK

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Obama's Wars: The anatomy of U.S. military power

2010-10-21T03:28:00.000-07:00

The strategy expert Prof. Dr. Albert A. Stahel of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Zurich made me aware of the book “Obama's Wars” by Bob Woodward.

As former head of the German cultural propaganda in Switzerland during World War I, my interest in military affairs still remains.

In his latest book the Watergate journalist Bob Woodward gives a very interesting inside view of the military power of USA. As a text example, I can recommend to read a free chapter on Kindle.

Although the United States as a world power is sometimes disturbing, I'm not naive enough to believe that the U.S. is the most reliable partner for Europe.

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HGK

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Political effigy of Ariel Sharon

2010-10-20T04:39:00.000-07:00

Ariel SharonNoam Braslavsky | Solo Exhibition, The Kishon Gallery21 Oct - 19 Nov 2010

A great work and a reminder of the tradition of effigies.
Since the middle Ages, an own genre of votive offering was established, which were named in analogy to the ancestral portraits in the Roman cult of the dead effigy.

These were body sculptures made of wax, wood or leather and which were provided with clothing of the deceased for the funeral ceremonies, for taking the place of the deceased.

However, after the ritual funerary, the effigies lost its magical function as a “persona ficta” (Ernst H. Kantorowicz). So the useless effigy were then parked carelessly somewhere in a storeroom.

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Harry Count Kessler

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eBooks: World Literature on your Fingertips

2010-10-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

Kindel Ad on YouTube

Who would have thought that I can still participate in this revolution.
Access to world literature and selected books in electronic form.
Although digital books never reach the aesthetic and tactile quality of my printed books of the Cranach Press, the quality of digital copies is sufficient to read while traveling or for research purposes.
Mainly I download my ebooks free from “Project Gutenberg "or "The Internet Archive". Sometimes I by the book at Amazon. PDF texts I can read with my Kindle too.
Recently libraries such as the Central Library Zurich offer electronic books for downloading. You can download the files in PDF or Kindle format. So far I downloaded the book in PDF format and I made afterwards a paper copy. Today I can just drop the data on my Kindle.
Check it out.
Harry Count Kessler

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"LA FABRIQUE DES IMAGES", [ethnocentristic] exposition d’anthropologie du musée du quai Branly, Paris

2010-10-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

Fully perplex, I left yesterday, the ethnological Musée du quai Branly (by J. Nouvel).

I could not believe my eyes, when I saw the new temporary exhibition with the title "The Making of Images".

To quote the Website of the exhibition: „After Qu’est-ce qu’un corps ? and Planète métisse, the 3rd major anthropology exhibition of the musée du quai Branly proposes the discovery of a "making of images" spanning 5 continents to the public. With 160 works and objects, the exhibition deciphers large artistic and material productions of humanity to reveal what is not seen directly in an image.“

While in the first section, the visitors was served with the usual ethological objects, such as masks and sculptures, the visitors received suddenly a blow from a kind of “ethnocentric club”, when entering the second section with the title “AN OBJECTIVE WORLD”: NATURALISM:

It is as if the curator (Philippe Casella) holds a remote control in his hands and is zapping from one TV channel to another: Dutch painting from the XVII, with the representation of money, Jules Mares bird flight, one of Droz android’s or Descartes facial reconstruction. Because of that, all the other ethnological artifacts even those from the entire museum are now scaled and rated with reference to the exhibits of the western modern world in this section. The blow was even more violent, because it was believed, that the Musée du quai Branly is a refuge of tolerance and intercultural dialogue. This ethnocentristic view is all the more astonishing because the curator of the exhibition, Philippe Casella, is officially posing as a student of Claude Levi Strauss.

From the blow, I could not recover, so I had to leave the Museum. In passing the last two sections, I thought I still noticed some contemporary sandpaintigs of Indigenous Australians, Katschina Dolls and cheap-looking copies of “Western” illustrations of anatomy.

In hasty steps, I left the museum without a looking back, so I would not freeze to a pillar of salt.

Harry Count Kessler

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