December 2017

Culture & Literature 20. December 2017

Culinary Christmas Delights in Austria

In the Western world, Christmas time is considered to be the most wonderful time of the year and is celebrated accordingly. Even in today’s China, celebrating Christmas is getting more and more popular — at least in major cities, where the festival is basically embraced as a commercialized event.  Not aware of its religious background, the Chinese tend to associate Christmas mostly with Santa Claus, who brings presents as well as festive music and decorations. No wonder, China has been pursuing a consumption-driven economy for decades now. As a cultural and religious holiday celebrated by Christians, Christmas commemorates the birth…

Culture & Literature 19. December 2017

That Other Dimension

The night comes, boosting my creativity. The night, the dream, the fever. Doors to undiscovered worlds open up. Arms reach out, arms of darkness, of light, arms that grasp my eyes and my head, forcing me into another dimension.  I have no control of it. There, I do not harm anyone, and do not get harmed.  In that other dimension, however, everything seems as usual, real. The sounds of cars passing by, as frequently as the cries of the pitch-black crows. The clock is ticking, as regularly as planes flying across the sky. It is still the usual world with…

Opinions 19. December 2017

A View from the Inside

Today, Monday December 18th, the far right-wing government is sworn in by the green president in Vienna. A thick political cloud begins to hang over the social atmosphere in Austria. Read the insightful view by the Harvard-graduate, biologist Franz BeerFarmer. During the first “real” world war, which heralded the demise of Europe as world colonial hegemon 100 years ago, the pacifist Austrian writer and journalist Karl Kraus wrote a theater play 10 full evenings long. The title of the play was “The last days of mankind”, the setting being Austria as micro-laboratory for the coming fundamental change and destruction of…

Technology 9. December 2017

Bitcoin’s Price Bubble will Burst under Government Pressure

Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University, was also the chief economist of the IMF from 2001 to 2003. In early October, he wrote an article about Bitcoin which showed enough insight to the matter. In the article, he observed that “China’s government, concerned about the use of Bitcoin in capital flight and tax evasion, has recently banned Bitcoin exchanges. Japan, on the other hand, has enshrined Bitcoin as legal tender, in an apparent bid to become the global centre of fintech. The United States is taking tentative steps to follow Japan in regulating fintech, though…

Opinions 9. December 2017

Some Thoughts on Human Rights

The history of the human rights is as old as mankind. At all times, human life and human dignity tend to be hurt and disdained. Power, ressources as well as the fight for superiority have been a prerequisite of force and violence, individually or collectively. Actually, civilisations and philosophical schools of thoughts on the principal of human equality existed in all cultures, serving also as benchmarks for political rights.  At the same time, descent, ethnic, religious and gender differences have been used to distinquish people and make a difference,  justifying slavery, racism and all kinds of discrimination on women and…