Annas Weblog

Check it out, check it out! My friend S. told me about the PhD thesis of a pretty great girl today and I visited her blog: turns out she’s got a pretty great blog, too.

Her name is danah boyd and you find her here. I absolutely recommend her personal commentary on the latest discrepancy in the current US election campaign with the catchy title “As a woman, I’m offended” and there’s no doubt about it: she’s damn right. I’d be, too … hold on, I AM, too because it just doesn’t matter whether you are an American citizen or not. And if I additionally consider the background of my yesterday’s read on Sarah Palin (and if only half of it were true) I’d say: I am very thankful for the following things in Germany.

a.) In an election campaign peoples’ personal life is usually divided from their work life. E.g. It doesn’t matter if you are gay or not (having two gay mayors in two major cities – you might even say, we have two “gay major mayors” … OK, I stop it, this is serious.) I am not saying that personal issues are never a topic of the discussion -the national tabloids are just as good or bad as all the other tabloids in the world- but I have the feeling that it doesn’t have that much influence on peoples’ decisions.

b.) Election speeches do not have this blunt, propaganda touch and this pathetic … flush. May it be because we don’t want “CHANGE” (actually, why don’t we?) or may we have agreed on a set of values that we don’t need to discuss over and over again or may it be because words such as “Steigerung des Bruttoinlandsproduktes”, “Bekämpfung der Arbeitslosigkeit” or “Verbesserung der Bildungschancen” just seems a fix set of variables without whom an election speech may not be handed out to the politician in question… I don’t have the answer and must admit: Although I am happy about the content in German election speeches (not always but yeah, sometimes we have that) I envy the US politicians for bringing it  to the point and actually making it an interesting message.

c.) In our political system it is not possible that one single person has that much power: In the end McCain decided for the first position behind him. (Wikipedia says the following: “In practice, the presidential nominee has considerable influence on the decision, and in 20th century it became customary for that person to select a preferred running mate, who is then nominated and accepted by the convention.” Now, my knowledge is insufficient on how the decision process on the filling of the vice-presidency spot actually works in detail but already thinking about the possibility of ONE guy having more power than people of his party leaves me with an aching stomach – well, this could also be caused by the salami sandwich earlier… .)

d.) … and there are a couple of more points I am also grateful for but don’t have the time to put down.

All I wanted to say is: check out danahs’ blog. 😉 Oh, and this video.