The great stories from Madrid…

… that we’re all missing out on!

I have a great female friend who lives in Madrid and always has wonderful stories to tell. Actually it’s not stories, it’s stuff that really happens to her. And because she is a natural poet it always is great to listen to her (or in my case to read her, as I now live in London).

Me and Tomy have been trying to convince her for quite some time to start a blog, to get her beautiful stories out to the world, but she always find reasons not to do it.

Here’s a little extract of her explaining why she shouldn’t write a blog, which at the same time shows exactly why she should write one:

“[...]

my argument is more that like 1) who cares about my stupid stories except for you 2 (if you want i can send you an email each week 3) what if someone did actually read it? that would be awful. then they would know. they would know that i am a fucking spaz, that i go on dates and that people steal my bicycles.

i have some other doubts too.

finally, i could not write just about dating.
dating is so boring.
its so boring it makes me sleepy.
which is why i usually sleep with them on the first date.
that way i am guaranteed a bed and a nap.

[...]“

 

Isn’t that great?! I love it!

Paint explosion

 

Here’s another advertisement that I love. 

Skateboarding car advertisement

 

Love it!

Avaaz: We won’t be silenced by a handful of extremists

I want to tell you about our urgent effort to put billboards up in Jerusalem, telling leaders to lock in a date for real peace talks. I signed and thought you might want to do so as well! See Avaaz’s email below (they’re serious, there’s more on them at the end).

————————

Over 80,000 of us signed Avaaz’s campaign for Real Middle East Peace Talks, and the diplomatic buzz is growing. We put up member-designed billboards in Jerusalem, and they got national media coverage — then a couple of extremists vandalised the billboards.

This is good news — it shows we’re making a real impact. Let’s put the billboards back up with even more signatures, and put them in Tel Aviv as well as Jerusalem! Can you help grow the campaign to more than 100,000 voices for peace before the end of the week? Click here to sign the petition:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/real_middle_east_talks/

That’ll show the vandals: every time they deface our message we’ll put it back up with more support. Most Israelis and Palestinians say they want proper negotiations: we refuse to be silenced by a small minority. You can see the billboards via the link above. At this moment of upheaval in Middle East politics, these mock travel adverts are challenging and disarming the Israeli public — here’s some of what the Jerusalem Post said:

While enticing Israelis to travel by featuring attractive women and scenery are nothing new, these billboards were created to stop Israelis in their tracks. These ads feature “enemy states” such as Saudi Arabia and Syria in a whole new way, with only the fine print noting that the price is for one room and a double bed – dependent on the Saudi peace plan.

“Israelis visiting Damascus, Dubai, even Jericho is inconceivable today – unless they’re in uniform,” said Hilder. “We wanted to help Israelis look and think again about the Arab Peace Initiative.”

We’ve had a great response to the ads, though Israel’s politicians are still dancing around the idea of real peace talks based on 1967 borders. So don’t let the extremists silence us – spread the word, get us to 100,000 and we’ll put up even more billboards!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/real_middle_east_talks/

With hope,

Paul, Galit, Ricken, Ben, Graziela, Iain and all at Avaaz

Ps: our Stop the Clash video (part of this campaign) got an amazing response from people all round the world, won a non-profit video competition ( http://www.nten.org/blog/2007/04/25/things-we-like) and has been chosen by YouTube to feature on its new political vlog. See “Stop the Clash” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWyJJQbFago

Some of the billboards media coverage -

Jerusalem Post article: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1177514488411&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

Ice News (a big Israeli news site, in Hebrew): http://www.ice.co.il/article.asp?catId=1&pgId=105568

Avaaz is a community of global citizens who take action on the major issues facing the world today. Its aim is to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people — and not just political elites and unaccountable corporations — shape global decisions. Avaaz members are taking action for a more just and peaceful world and a vision of globalization with a human face. Avaaz means voice in a variety of Asian, Middle Eastern and European languages. Avaaz already has almost 1 million participants from over 180 countries.

Sarkozy killed Le Pen… but France is dead too

I just red a post on a French Blog called Big Bang Blog. It was talking about how Sarkozy copied the victorious walk of Chirac in 1995…

I totally agree with that. But what kind of surprised me was that they were saying that Sarkozy “killed Le Pen” (“[...] Il a tué Le Pen, c’est vrai [...]“) because before the election Le Pen was screaming around that Sarkozy was going to be the Jospin of 2007, meaning that he wasn’t even going to pass the first round. Finally Le Pen got 4th with a bit more then 10% of the votes. Sarkozy is first with more then 31% of the votes.

Not a big surprise to me. All surveys were forecasting this result. In 2002 surveys forecasted the wrong result (Chirac against Jospin in the second round) but there was only a 4% difference between the poll and the final result. Le Pen wasn’t suddenly going to gain 15% more votes than expected.

What I find weird in all this is that saying that saying that Sarkozy “killed Le Pen” sounds like something great… but it obviously isn’t. Sarkozy only “killed” the old man thanks to the ideas of that same old man! Like a user comment says on the Big Bang Blog you shouldn’t mistake chasing the Nazis with stealing there ideas (“Faut pas confondre chasser les nazis et courrir après leurs idées“)!

I’m happy that Le Pen didn’t go through, no doubt. But I’m extremely scared about what is happening in the country that gave me half of my blood. I don’t understand how so many people get so many strange ideas. From 12 candidates, 3 were not only right, but a bit more then that! And it’s not just any candidates, not the 3 last ones; they came first (Nicolas Sarkozy: 31,11%), fourth (Jean-Mari Le Pen: 10,51%) and sixth (P. De Villiers: 2,24%)! If we add that up we have nearly 44% of the French voters that are dreaming of an authoritarian system…

(If anyone finds that I’m going to far saying that Sarkozy is extreme, I found this article pretty interesting. I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s an interesting view on things; what would people say if Turkey, or why not Germany, decided to create a “Ministry of Immigration and National Identity”? I ask you: Would that scare us or would we find it legitimate?)

I have a French colleague who voted for Sarkozy. He says he’s the only one that can “save France”. And he was talking about security the favorite subject of these people. I know this might seem a bit extreme, but I can’t stop making the comparison to my other half (my German side) and I think people alos though that Hitler was the only one that was able to save German. And also, Hitler did huge changes! Many people got work when he came to power. Probably just like we’ll all feel so much safer when Sorkazy will be president. And he promises to lower the unemployment under the 5% rate within five years.

Isn’t the question to know whether we really agree with the way he’s going to achieve these things? Whether we agree with the kind of society this might make out of us?!?

As a conclusion I’d just like to add a sentence that I read in an interview of the British-Indian writer/philosopher Salman Rushdie in Der Spiegel:

“If there is a choice between absolute safety and freedom, then freedom must always prevail.“

Banksy

Here’s one of my favorite pictures by Banksy.
His art always brings some beautiful controversies. Perfect to me.

He definitely started a new movement. You can see some of his stuff and stuff from other nice artists at Pictures On Walls.

Green Gwladys

A very nice picture of Gwladys, as I find!