With only ten more days until the grand election, it’s time for our equally grand finale of the Obama Check. Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats (CDU) will have the honor of being the final checkee. As a fellow head of government, Merkel deals with Barack Obama on a regular basis. Did those interactions leave a mark on the German Chancellor? Find out after the break and see the final score of our series.
Good Day and welcome to the third installment of our five-part series the Obama Check. Today it’s Renate Künast’s of the Green Party turn. She, as the previous checkees Guido Westerwelle and Oskar Lafontaine, will be tested in five categories, the rating criterias of which you can read here.
Today, at close to 1:30 A.M. GMT+1, Michael Jackson officially passed away.
We mourn this tragedy. We will celebrate his legacy till our hearts stop beating.
Let his words and deeds be a lesson to us all: Start with the man in the mirror.
Michael, you’re royalty, always. The King is dead! Long live the King!
Welcome to the second instalment of the Obama Check, where we test German politicians’ Obamaness. In our inaugural edition we checked Guido Westerwelle, today it’s Oskar Lafontaine’s turn. The chairman of the Left Party will be rated in five categories, you can read the criteria here.
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.
Teach for America has been sending graduates from top universities to poor communities for 20 years. In addition to teaching, they are meant to be role models for their students. Now the idea is implemented in Germany, too – but not everyone is happy with that.
Americans have a lot of stereotypes about the beer brewers in lederhosen from Germany. Germans know that. They love to tease Americans for their “narrow” worldview, and like to tell them that in fact, if it hadn’t been for one vote, German would be the official language of the Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika today. Well, not really.
It is these misconceptions and misunderstandings Scot W. Stevenson likes to target with his blog USA erklärt. Scot explains everything from humoristic differences, administrative particularities, and popcultural references that Germans have a hard time to understand. Post after post, using his (and his parents’) wide knowledge about German and American culture, his readers are lead towards a more accurate picture of America.
When Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chair and longtime icon of the free market, testified last October before the House Oversight Committee on the current financial crisis, he did something that he had not done much very much in his 18 glorious years as the head of the Fed: say “Oops.”
The 82-year-old acknowledged that he had made a mistake in believing that the nation’s banks, operating in their own self-interest, would adequately protect their shareholders and avoid unreasonable risks in the financial markets. Such economic decision-making, made possible through lax regulation and low interest rates that Mr. Greenspan once endorsed but is now shying away from, was, as he put it, “a flaw in the model that defines how the world works.” Indeed, Mr. Greenspan’s world doesn’t seem to be making much sense as it once did. [Read more]
As a vehicle for pro-life propaganda, Juno is a Trojan horse. It won over liberal hearts, and somehow managed to smuggle in its conservative baggage. It is not, as accommodating film critic Roger Ebert suggested, a masterpiece. The only thing it does masterfully is conceal it’s fundamentalism from moderate audiences. For that, it deserves recognition.
There is a niche for everyone on the Internet, the saying goes. tapmag feels quite comfortable in the transatlantic corner, so we thought maybe it’s time to take a look around and meet our compatriots.
Every week, we will feature one blog that we think you should know. To kick of the series, we invited Igor and Adrian from Amerika Wählt to answer our questionnaire. Their blog has intensely covered the past elections, and they will continue to report on American politics, the Obama administration and everything else with wit and knowledge.
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