Writings

In a (very much) earlier life at some point I wrote the following short stories and the one novel.
The stories have not been translated, they are in their original German version.

Die lauten Tage des Windes
Die Frau mit den struppigen Haaren - eine abfällige Liebesgeschichte
Der Regentanz (Roman)
Der Riss

For quite some time now I have enjoyed cooking (vegetarian). In the course of the years this has resulted in quite a collection of recipies - some from friends an family, some from own experiments. I have written them all down. Here you'll find those that have made it into a "printable" form.
Again, much of this is in German.

My first Reindling (German)

Here you'll find some thoughts on various topics.

"Thoughts ticker". Basically the kind of things one would also post on twitter or the like. Just without twitter.
Categories: Corona virus Climate change Social policy General

The rich countries of the global north are hoarding vaccination doses (up to ten times their population). The poor countries of the global south struggle to get any vaccination doses at all, and sometimes have to pay a multiple of the market price to get even small amounts. Still think that capitalism and "free" market are a good thing? Think again.
Before you get on a car, plane or motor ship the next time, ask yourself this: Would you also sacrifice the life of your children, your grandchildren if that sacrifice took place instantly, before your very eyes, and not somewhen later, after some distant decades?
Well, well, now you've given all the money to industrial and other large companies, so that they could pay fat dividends to their shareholders. And suddenly there are no funds left for thousands of restaurants, small businesses and self-employed persons? Just how long do you reckon, will we stand by and watch?
Saw the first drunken, aggressive heckler in town today, after almost 2 months of peace. What if they have taken over the city in the meantime?
What if Corona is simply our last warning?
I did not think that I would ever quote JFK, but there is hardly a way to put this better: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
The first ones to send aid to Italy during COVID19 were Russia an China. Currently Eurobonds are being blocked, and refugee ships are being denied permission to land in any European harbour.
Nothing more needs to be said about today's Europe.
Companies who continue to pay millions in wages to their managers in times of crisis must not be "saved" by public funds. Solidarity is not a one-way street!
Prices charged for life-critical items like face masks for health care professionals were up to a thousand times higher than usual during the covid pandemic. Nobody ever again tell me that capitalism and "free" market are good for mankind.
A health care system that is designed to maximise corporate profits instead of the chances of medical healing must by its very nature fail in a medical crisis.
One of the main reasons for the economic crisis which is being proclaimed everywhere is that rent still must be paid nevertheless - by private households as well as by companies. Is is too much to ask a little solidarity from the landlords? Have they not made enough money already?
Listening to the desperate affirmations of people like US secretary of state Pompeo, that the US had nothing to do with the creation of the corona virus, leaves only one reasonable conclusion in the light of the last 50 years: that he is lying.
Weird scenes today in the local grocery store: Everybody is highly concentrated, nobody is talking to anybody else, they even seem to avoid making eye contact. If you speak to somebody you can actuall see how the answer must fight its way through a thick layer of astonishment (or mistrust?), it arrives with a noticeable delay. This feels like being in the US: everybody is afraid of everybody else.
The repeal of personal freedom and the introduction of far-reaching total surveillance must not become a habitude. It must be invoked only in times of crisis like the Corona crisis, and it must be limited to an officially declared state of emergency.
In France they seem to be facing shortage of wine and condoms, while here it's toilet paper. Any more questions?
I would have us face climate change with the same measure of determination, once the Corona crisis is over. It is also threatening countless millions of human lives.
200 rolls of toilet paper and 50 kilograms of pasta stowed at home are clearly signs of an internal emigration. I will have no more talk about denying people the right to flee from hostile environments!
When they saved the banks from the financial crisis they had brought about themselves, in the end it amounted to transferring public wealth to private offshore businessmen, who had proven to not be capable of managing it. No receipt, no liabilities, and no return. This must have been heaven for them. And in many countries those funds had to be scraped together in the public health system, where they are now missing.
While watching a live discussion between some climate activists I suddenly had the sad vision that after corona all climate considerations will be wiped aside in order to rebuild the broken economic "system". How to prepare for and prevent that?
We have witnessed that it is democratically possible to put an entire continent into quarantine. This means that one can at least envision the possibility of enforcing one climate saving measure or the other, even against opposition from the economy's lobbies.
Good bye, Chuck. No rock without you. (Yeah, I guess you never can tell)
As long as European countries allow their enterprises to exploit and destroy the people's homelands, so that life there simply is not possible anymore, they have the duty to receive and to house them. All of them." >>> Continue reading (German) >>>
"That which is novice-friendly is too frequently expert-hostile, and vice versa." (Tom Christiansen)
It was the banks' failures who put Greece in the debt it is in now. And it is banks who are on the receiving end of all the so-called support programs - public funds tunnelled into private pockets via a scheme forced upon the Greek people by the German-led EU by extortion, political blackmail and sheer brute force. And the same private hands then managed to get a hold on large parts of the Greek estate by - again - forcing privatization of state property. This is not the Europe we've voted for. This is colonialism all over again, in all its perversion.
A door slams shut. Before your eyes the years keep changing their skin, and you have long lost any delight in watching their obvious nakedness.