The King's Speech

The German and I saw the trailer for this while in London (and watching Harry Potter) and we thought it looked great. Based on the true story of the problem with stuttering that Prince Albert, who became George VI after the unexpected abdication of his "golden" (although Nazi sympathizing) older brother (to marry his divorced American mistress).
So when we finally found a new babysitter (our last opened her own kita and left us forlorn)— and let me recommend kijiji.de for finding a babysitter that allows you to find and interview people based on their PZL— we decided that we would love to see it.
Earlier in the week I had heard an announcer discussing the movie's chances in the Academy Awards (and later it won several, including Best Picture), and they had included a clip: in German. The clip discussed how Albert— or the new George VI— would soon need to discuss war with Germany and it was strangely disassociate to hear it spoken in German (all movies released in Germany are dubbed in German. One of the more interesting careers here is that of being the "voice" of a Hollywood actor— these voices remain the voice of that actor throughout the career of the actor and Germans know only the German voices rather than the actual voices. That can be odd when a German voices two actors who play in the same movie and I am told that in such case, one voice is replaced, which must be very strange to the listening Germans!).
So we decided to see it in OV (original voice), which is always a bit of a hike, and it was a belated Valentine's Day outing, combined with dinner at ( very good fast food Italian) Vapiano.
We both enjoyed the movie very much. Not a "big" movie, but a very warm and interesting one. I can see why the writer also completed this as a play (and it will appear soon), because I can see it operating extremely well in a drawing-room.
I only had a momentary panic attack at the H**ler in Berlin newscast, and the focus was on Prince Albert (Colin Firth) and Logue (Rush). It was wonderful to see their faces (and that of the later Queen Mum, Helena Bonham Carter) as human faces: they looked real and lived in and wrinkled and not plasticised, plastic surgeried or Botoxed.
One of the items I found interesting was that Derek Jacobi played the Archbishop of Canterbury and that of course, one of his most famous roles was as the stuttering Claudius of the wonderful I, Claudius series.
It was also wonderfully humanizing and a bit sad to hear of the treatment of children at that period and to think about how far we have come and yet how some children are still mistreated. The German was a little nonplussed when I pointed out that the young, vibrant woman he saw portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter was the woman he remembers at 90+ as the Queen Mum: what amazing world changes she saw in her life time

Ever wondered why

certain areas of Berlin are overwhelmingly Turkish and poor? I didn't know that "temporary workers had been required to settle only in certain areas.

Immigration
Another wall has risen

Over 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an invisible partition still divides the city, observes La Stampa: "South of the Bernauer Strasse begins the Mitte district with its health food shops and bobo cafés. To the north are Wedding and Brunnenviertel with their record unemployment levels and council housing inhabited by Turkish and Arab families.” So despite all the outraged reactions to Thilo Sarrazin’s incendiary remarks, the myth of multiculti Berlin is crumbling, revealing a reality of failed integration and ghettoisation. The authorities, who had hoped the “guest workers” would not remain for a long time in Germany, only allowed them to settle in certain neighbourhoods, such as Kreuzberg and Neukölln. "The result is that nowadays there are several areas where you can go shopping or go to the doctor’s without speaking a word of German.”

Hatred in Action

I have had a couple of recent posts about racism and anti-semitism (and how easy it is to forget). The blowback has been that the disagreement some feel with Israel's policies doesn't indicate anti-semitism. I disagree in so many ways, because I have never seen a discussion of Israel's policies outside of the US (where people do disagree and yet manage not to be Jew haters while doing so) which did not have one side veer into vitriolic anti-semitism.

But this hideous murder of a young Rabbi and his wife, who have absolutely nothing to do with Israel's policies, who simply held a community center whose only purpose is openness and outreach, who worked for nothing but good within the Mumbai community!

The choice to take, violently, the Jewish Community Center of Mumbai and there to commit murder: what purpose did that serve except Jew hatred?

The same purpose served when my children's kindergarten here has swastikas painted on it, or rocks thrown though the window, or threats made agains it and the community center. This is not disagreement with  Israel's policies. This is an outspringing of the disease known as Jew hatred, taught in the madrassas as cartoon Jews murder bootlegged Mickey Mouses to help infants learn to hate Jews, and taught in Europe through comments, made openly at political dinners by French ambassadors, such as "Dirty little Jews- they are always starting wars" or cartoons such as these pieces of filth:--- Strange how Jews and Israelis have not issued fatwahs or murdered people over these, isn't it? And my heart goes out to the poor people, of all races and religions, who have been terrorized and murdered because of the horrible and disgusting practices of religious psychotics. May they one day come to realize that their own religion condemns them and their actions.



Al-Wifaq, February 6, 2006 (Iran)

Translation: The Jewish\Israeli devil is saying: "I don't admit the limits of freedom of speech except the Holocaust."

Web Site of the Arab European League (February 2, 2006)

Al-Watan, February 3, 2004 (Oman)
Translation:
On left - Feast of the Immolation
On right - The Islamic World's Attitude?


Tishrin, Apirl 21, 2002 (Syria)
The book in the left hand of the Jewish stereotype is the Torah

Ancient Rome in 3-D

This is just amazingly cool.