The Living Room

About success and failure

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Michaela

Alain de Botton examines our ideas of success and failure — and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments. Is success always earned? Is failure? He makes an eloquent, witty case to move beyond snobbery to find true pleasure in our work.

Posted in Recipes for Health | Tagged failure, success | 1 Comment

A matter of indifference

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Michaela

By Marc Brost – Heike Buchter – Mark Schieritz

One can’t even see this crisis, and that’s the dangerous thing about it. Tens of thousands of Germans are on holidays in Italy, relaxing on the beach at Viareggio or strolling through the streets of Florence. They are not witnessing mass demonstrations as they did a few weeks back in Athens and Madrid. They see no hate posters against Germans, as they did in Dublin and Lisbon.

As a visitor, one doesn’t see right off whether a country is facing economic collapse. Whether the money is threatening to drain away from a particular country, and whether or not it can even find more donors. One doesn’t see the threat – even when it’s hanging over the future of a whole continent

Since the start of the week Italian government bonds have been in freefall. The international lenders have been pulling their capital out so quickly and so massively that it has taken even financial market insiders by surprise. It’s true that Italy’s economy within the eurozone was always a doubtful prospect. But Italy was always proof that a country with big problems can somehow muddle through. That, despite high government debt and simmering government crises, it was trustworthy – for tourists and investors alike.

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Posted in The world we live in Now | Tagged European Central Bank, European Union, Italy, Moody's, Portugal, United States, Wall Street | Leave a comment

A talk for world peace

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Michaela

The Dalai Lama giving a public teaching in front of the US Capitol in Washington DC, on July 9th 2011. This is in conjunction with a 10 day Kalachakra Ritual – a major transformative teaching, that thousands of people are currently receiving in a sports stadium

Am I the only one to see an immense global significance to these events ?

Check out the Kalachakra2011 Web site for more information.

Posted in Teacher & Teachings | 8 Comments

The R-word

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Michaela

By Ted Rall

The Associated Press’ Paul Wiseman had one of the snappier headlines last week: “The Economic Recovery Turns Two – Feel Better?”

“After previous recessions, people in all income groups tended to benefit,” Wiseman wrote. “This time, ordinary Americans are struggling with job insecurity, too much debt, and pay raises that haven’t kept up with prices at the grocery store and gas station. The economy’s meager gains are going mostly to the wealthiest…A big chunk of the economy’s gains has gone to investors in the form of higher corporate profits.”

Wiseman quoted David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff and Associates in Toronto: “The spoils have really gone to capital, to the shareholders.”

Karl Marx, call your office.

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Posted in The world we live in Now | Tagged Barack Obama, Economy of the United States, Unemployment, United States | 5 Comments

The Black Mountain

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Michaela

Grossglockner is Austria’s highest peak and the eastern Alps’ most impressive summit. Rising to a height of almost 3900 meters, the ‘BLACK MOUNTAIN’ towers over an Alpine natural paradise.

Posted in Places | Tagged Grossglockner | Leave a comment

The living cathedral

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Michaela

St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna

Posted in Places | Tagged St. Stephen's Cathedral | Leave a comment

When the poor give to the rich

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Michaela

By Susanne Lundin

A few days ago, a friend of mine, a medical scientist and physician in a Swedish hospital, received an astounding offer in her email box.

In poorly written English, the missive read: “My name is Alex. I am [a] 31 years [old] European man. I never drank alcohol and did not smoke cigarettes. My blood is O and I have a good health. If you need [a] liver transplant I am ready to give part of my liver, but I want to receive a big compensation for that.”

Such offers are hardly uncommon. Similar pleas to sell body parts appear in different forums and websites, such asMahmnud75.

This advertisement is typical: “I am an Indian. My native place [is] Brahmpur, district -Ganjam, Odisha. My age is 37 (17-08-1974). My blood group [is] O . I am fully vegetarian. I am interested to sell to an American my left kidney for 80,000 US dollar. I am interested to sell to a Chinese – [my] right kidney for 80,000 US dollar. I am interested to sell to a Russian [my] heart for 100,000 US dollar. I am interested to sell to a Japanese [my] brain for 100,000 US dollar.”

Offers of this type could, just a few years ago, be found at liver4you.org, which promised kidneys for prices between $80,000 and $110,000. The costs of the operation, including the fees of the surgeons – allegedly licensed in the United States, Great Britain, or the Philippines – was included in the price.

Today, that website no longer exists. Many illegal medical cyber-markets exist for only a short time, only to disappear and re-emerge with a new name.

The internet’s role in illegal organ sales is growing, but it is still a small slice of the massive global human-tissue economy. The World Health Organization has estimated that about ten per cent of organ transplants around the world are arranged through commercial transactions.

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Posted in The world we live in Now | Tagged Medicine, Organ transplantation | Leave a comment

News of the World

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Michaela

Image via Wikipedia

Scotland Yard collected evidence in 2006 indicating that hundreds of celebrities, government officials, soccer stars – anyone whose personal secrets could be tabloid fodder – might have had their phone messages hacked by reporters at the News of the World tabloid. Only now, more than four years later, are most of them beginning to find out.

See the timeline for details of power and practices of the tabloid media. It is encouraging that these abominations too are coming to the light of the day – and are swiftly bringing down the shadowy web of Rupert Murdoch’s Media Empire.

Posted in The world we live in Now | Tagged News Corporation, News International, News of the World, News of the World phone hacking affair, Rupert Murdoch | 2 Comments

Excuses

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Michaela

By Paul Krugman

If you were shocked by Friday’s job report, if you thought we were doing well and were taken aback by the bad news, you haven’t been paying attention. The fact is, the United States economy has been stuck in a rut for a year and a half.

Yet a destructive passivity has overtaken our discourse. Turn on your TV and you’ll see some self-satisfied pundit declaring that nothing much can be done about the economy’s short-run problems (reminder: this “short run” is now in its fourth year), that we should focus on the long run instead.

This gets things exactly wrong. The truth is that creating jobs in a depressed economy is something government could and should be doing. Yes, there are huge political obstacles to action — notably, the fact that the House is controlled by a party that benefits from the economy’s weakness. But political gridlock should not be conflated with economic reality.

Our failure to create jobs is a choice, not a necessity — a choice rationalized by an ever-shifting set of excuses.

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