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Last night on Rachel Maddow, Kent Jones went for a little cultural superiority talk, when discussing the Eurovision Song Contest:
“You ever wonder what happened to countries that didn’t invent Blues or Jazz or Rockabilly or R’n'B or Funk or Hip-Hop? This happens!”

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The Scent Of A Human: Eau De Schwinn?

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This isn’t a new episode of The Hills or Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten, but these days it seems professional journalists have all caught some of that exasperated, gawking and driveling tone usually confined to fashion (or rather, pre-teen) magazines. The object of this circus: Michelle Obama.

The First Ladies of Fashion - Screenshot from vanityfair.com

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So many newspapers, magazines, TV shows, blogs, and other news sources comment on transatlantic issues every day. If you want to keep track, Atlantic Review might be the press digest of choice. The site picks the best, highlights the worst and corrects the plainly wrong of the many transatlantic news stories.

It is highly recommended reading for everyone trying to keep up with transatlantic culture, global politics, and European and American perceptions of the significant other. Edited by a three men team, including an alumnus of the Free University of Berlin, Atlantic Review has drawn a sizeable audience, as evidenced by the lively discussion surrounding each post in the comments.

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Die schrecklichen Ereignisse von Winnenden wurden inzwischen medial verarbeitet und hundertfach durchgekaut. Was dabei heraus kam, war definitiv keine Sternstunde der deutschen Medienlandschaft. Auseinandersetzungen mit der Berichterstattung über den Amoklauf findet ihr unter anderem hier bei Spreeblick und hier bei Stefan Niggemeier (via Medienelite).

Die Tagesschau rühmt sich derweil, das Video mit den letzten Minuten des Täters nicht gezeigt zu haben – wohl aber ein verstörtes junges Mädchen – während das ZDF erklärt, das “Fälschen im Internet kinderleicht” sei (Video). Na sowas. Fast alle Medien haben inzwischen Fotos des Täters, Bilder seines Elternhauses, nennen teilweise die Adresse eben jenen Hauses, und Bild schießt wie immer den Vogel ab und druckt am Tag nach dem Amoklauf Bilder angeblicher Opfer (!!).

Viele Politiker ergehen sich ganz betroffen in Verbotsideen – Sportwaffen verbieten, Ballerspiele verbieten, Einlasskontrolle an Schulen. Einige dieser Ideen mögen sinnvoll sein, doch die tieferen Ursachen einer solchen Tat berühren sie nicht. Wie es mit 17 war, daran können sich viele scheinbar nicht mehr erinnern.

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Welcome to the fourth installment of our mini-series on transatlantic blogs. Today with the first blog we introduce that is written in the U.S.: Dialog International by David Vickrey. He covers a vast scope of transatlantic topics—from literature and culture, over history, to politics and economics. His analysis is always on point and he continues to surprise with his in-depth knowledge of German affairs.

His first entry from July 2004 pretty much sums up his motivation: “This blog serves to support dialogue about culture and politics, with a special emphasis on repairing German-American relations.”

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Welcome to part two of our mini-series on transatlantic blogs. Although, Atlantic Community defies this category. It’s a network, think tank, public publishing system and arena for debate—all at once. Come to think of it, it is a blog, just supercharged by the ideas and opinions of its hundreds of members.

It was founded by the Atlantische Initiative in 2007, and is an excellent starting point to explore global issues and politics on a broad scale. David Lebhar was so nice to answer our set of questions on behalf of the Atlantic Community editorial team.

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“These people” are Guantanamo inmates, and Berlin’s Senator for the Interior, Ehrhart Körting, is not a fan. They went to Afghanistan believing it to be the promised land, the Social Democratic Senator told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, at a time when the stoning of women was a common occurrence. “It speaks volumes as to  mindset of these people, even if you can’t proof they’ve engaged in terrorist activities.” Körting added himself to a growing list of German politicians who debated whether to admit some of the soon to be released Gitmo detainees into Germany.

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Soon to be inaugurated President-elect Barack Obama might make a comeback to Berlin, the German weekly Focus reports. And this time it might be nothing less than the Brandenburger Tor for Germany’s favorite US President since the days of JFK. [Read more]

While the lead- up to the war in Iraq has been harshly criticized by many, new evidence suggests the carrying out of those plans was shockingly unprofessional and haphazard. The New York Times, along with ProPublica, have obtained a draft version of a report on the implementation of rebuilding plans that exposes practices such as

• faking numbers of Iraqi security forces
• hiring inexperienced personnel, or personnel with experience and qualifications completely unrelated to the job they were hired to do (National Security and Tennis, anyone?)
• decision making that was often carried out on the go, or by only few individuals without consultation of further expert opinions (Big Decisions, Little Debate)

The whole report can be accessed and searched via the New York Times website, where you can read all the outrageous information for yourself.

The report concludes with a part on “Lessons Learned”, and one can only hope that those lessons will be absorbed by the people in charge of the USA’s other war, as the article points out:

“The United States could soon have reason to consult this cautionary tale of deception, waste and poor planning, as both troop levels and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are likely to be stepped up under the new administration.”