Life in postmodern Europe

protect the environment, save your vine bottles

Last week I had a fierce debate with a friend of mine about if the whole talk about climate change is accurate or only invented by media and some forces in business and politics. Yes, I could not believe it at first, but H.McW. really advocated that all this climate talk is nonsense. Wow.

Here is a guy who thinks different: Today I came across the story of Peter Little from Australia, who, after 30 years of thinking about how to best save energy and prevent air pollution by better insulating houses, came up with a great idea: He is building a house, using only wine bottles as building material. By filling 13,500 of them with water the house will be completely insulated, he argues: "Water is probably, I think one of the miracle building materials of this century which nobody is using. ... It can store more energy, heat or cool than any material we know."

The only question left then is: What took you 30 years to come up with this idea? The answer most likely is: Drinking a lot of wine.

[story found on abc news online; picture from sxchng, taken by "quiman"]

fittest college in the US?

One of the European perception on Americans is, that Americans are - by and large - fatter then Europeans. Well, here comes an important study in this context: You can go to college in the US without gaining weight: Men's Fitness magzine asked the question: Which is America's fittest college? The results are based on interviews about exercise and diet habits on 115 campuses. The top 10 (for the full list click here):

1. Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.
2. Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y.)
3. Boston College
4. Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill.
5. University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt.
6. Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minn.
7. Grove City College, Pa.
8. Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas
9. Baylor University, Waco, Texas
10.  University of Richmond, Va.

In 2005 the magazine not only ranked the fittest, but also the fattest colleges in the US. They might have restrained themselves from doing it again because of another perceived difference between USA and EU: More strange lawsuits. However, if you do not bother but would like to see where you should not go to college, according to the magazine's study, if you want to stay slim, click here.

So, choose your college well and you might be able to spare yourself a diet. ;-)

This questionnaire should definitely be part of the German endeavor to identify the "elite universities" too.

[found on www.mensfitness.com; author of the picture collage with the pseudonym "prikk" unknown]

flea circus a la playstation - a reflexive parable about the church

There is one video clip which I use quite often these days when speaking about the church. I did so at a conference in Romanshorn, Switzerland, in early May, in two day-long seminars about postmodernism and the emerging church in April and May, and also last week in a project presentation at the annual staff conference of Christian Associates, a network of innovative churches all over Europe. Since many of you who have been there at one of those occasions asked me about the clip - here it is. You can download it here (8MB).

In case you haven't seen the clip - it is a must see. Simple but right to the point. It is almost like a modern parable of the church of today: We Christians and churches got quite used to our way of seeing the world. We also got quite used to a certain picture of Jesus and his message, as Brian McLaren points out so well in his latest book, "The secret message of Jesus". And we got quite used to one way, our way of doing church, instead of embracing various culturally relevant forms and living incarnationally. To speak in the language of this parable: The glas and the lid shaped our identity to such a degree that we perceive our thinking as the end of the world as we know it. But there is a whole new world out there.

This clip challenges us to leave our comfort zone, to "escape the circus" and to live beyond the imaginary, the "level set by the lid". Think outside the box. What is "church"!?

As Einstein said: "Problems can never be solved by the thinking which created them in the first place".

Zidane für Finale gegen Italine gesperrt!?!

!! BREAKING NEWS !!

Italiener liefern Beweis dass Zidane Figo gewürgt hat. FIFA sperrt Zidane für's Endspiel!

Immer diese Italiener... ;-))

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Ein Dank an Daniel, der mir diese witzig-kuriose, italienische story geschickt hat. :-)

Der Bär ist los - JJ1 und Goleo

Die WM hat begonnen und der Bär ist los: Der Problembär JJ1 geht vertikal in den freien Raum des Freistaats Bayern.

Jetzt endlich klärt sich auch die Abstammung des missratenste Maskottchen aller Zeiten: Der verhaltensgestörte "Problembär" JJ1 in Bayern und das verhaltensgestörte Problemmaskottchen "Goleo" - wenn da mal genetisch nicht Übereinstimmungen vorliegen ...

Randbemerkung: JJ1 heißt übrigens so, weil er das erste Kind von den Eltern José und Jurka ist - also J+J+1=JJ1. Kaum zu fassen: Manch Mensch weiß nicht, wer die Eltern sind, aber bei verhaltensgestörten Bären ist das kein Problem. Quelle: Mittelbayerische Zeitung

Über sich selbst lachen - George Bush mal anders

In unserem Land wird Bush ja oft sehr einseitig dargestellt. Hier die Chance mal eine andere Seite von ihm kennen zu lernen: Bush läd einen Comedien ein gemeinsam eine fiktive Ansprache zu halten. Das alleine ist schon bemerkenswert bei einem Präsidenten, egal welchen Landes.

Es gibt viel US-internes in dieser Ansprache, was auf Grund des fehlenden Kontextes und fehlenden Hintergrundwissens bei uns wohl nicht zu Lachern führt. Einige Stellen sind dann aber widerum sehr komisch. Mein Lieblingszitat: "I am continuing to spread our agenda globally and around the world, as well as internationally."

Dank an Marc, der den Link zu diesem Material auf seinem Blog gepostet hat (siehe auch dort).

Titanic II - The Sequel

No matter if you liked the movie Titanic or not - it was a one-time event, right? Wrong.

You think the Titanic sank and therefore there can not be a sequel? Believe it or do not: Here it is: The movie Titanic II. The Sequel.

Watch this:

WM2006 countdown - 31 days: Dutch grass

As always, the Dutch try very hard, against all odds, to survive more than the first couple of games in the soccer world cup. This despair lead to nasty forms in the past, like e.g. spitting on players of other teams (1990 Frank Rijkaard on Rudi Völler). This year the strategy seems to be more subversive: The Dutch grow the grass for the soccer fields in the world cup! Yes, thousands of square meters of grass have been sitting in Holland, waiting to be moved into the German arenas. Two kinds of grass are mixed. The official equation is as follows:

75% "Wiesenrispe"
25% "Weidelgras"
(however that translates into English; or Dutch, for this matter)

Now, I am sure the Dutchies secretly put something else in the mix. Anybody has any guess or insight what it is?

WM2006 countdown - 32 Tage

Noch 32 Tage bis zum Anstoß. So langsam realisiert es auch der Letzte: Wir befinden uns im WM-Jahr. Es ist nicht zu übersehen: Bei Mediamarkt gibt es für einen vor der WM gekauften Fernseher für jedes deutsche Tor 10Euro zurück, die Bahn verlängert eine vorher gekaufte Bahncard25 umsonst für so viele Monate wie die Deutsche Nationalmannschaft Runden übersteht und der Bäcker nebenan verkauft seine WM Brötchen billiger - und darf sie auch so nennen, nach dem Gerichtsurteil vor einigen Tagen.

Man kann der WM einfach nicht aus dem Weg gehen, wie das folgende Bild rechts zeigt: 

Intellligente Deutsche?

Die Deutschen sind angäblich die schlausten Europeer, dicht gefolgd von den Hohlendern. Weil wir Fleichesser sind. Na endlich ist es raus! Für weiter Kommentare und Quellenangaben siehe Marc's blog.

So wie die Grafik rechts könnte auch die europäische Reihenfolge bei der kommenden Weltmeisterschaft aussehen ... ;-)