Save your planet!

Hey guys (:

I'm sure that everyone of you knows this organisation and their aim to save our environment. But what comes to mind if you hear the word GREENPEACE? For some of you it sure is the situation when you're walking through the city and someone bothers you and want to persuade you to listen to them and then even spend your money that you've earned on your own. As all students you probably don't have an abundance of money and you sure can imagine better ways to spend it than to donate it to an random organisation especially since there are a lot of these. I totally unterstand this attitude but nevertheless I strongly believe that  Greenpeace is an organisation worth supporting. The organisation was founded in 1971 by peace activists in Vancouver and evolved from the peace movement and anti-nuclear protests. Since then Greenpeace has prevented a lot of things that without doubt would have harmed our environment. Apart from their campaign against nuclear weapons they also fought against the pollution of the ocean and were jointly responsible for a ban on burning poisonous waste. If you want to look deeper and know more facts there are some links that could interest you:

http://www.greenpeace.de/
http://gruppen.greenpeace.de/wuppertal/ueber_uns_files/greenpeace_chronik_und_erfolge_info.pdf
http://www.greenpeace.de/ueber_uns/jahresrueckblick/

What might be interesting for those of you who like fast food - thanks to Greenpeace McDonald's signed in 2001 to not use any genetically modified animal feed.

Violence as far as the eye can see ...

Today I want to talk about a topic that I get really angry about. Has anyone of you seen the film "Cloud Atlas"? I don't know if you noticed but the television rating for this film is 12 years. In case you haven't seen the film and you don't know what I'm talking about ... in this film you can see how one man shoots another in the head, how cannibals eat people, how a man is thrown from the roof-deck of a skyscraper (and you see his landing) and a lot of other really brutal scenes. I don't want to criticise the film itself - quite the contrary, I found it really extraordinary and interesting but I think that it's just awful what kids are allowed to see. This is not the only film where the television rating isn't age-based. Once I started to pay attention I realised that 12 year old kids are allowed to see nearly everthing. I'm not telling you this because I want to discuss if vionlent video games and films give rise to violent behaviour by kids and teenagers I just want to say that it's shocking what kind of films you get if you want to buy a "children's film". I am sensitive when it comes to violence so I give films which are x-rated a wide berth and watch mainly ones which 12 year olds are allowed to watch but nowadays this strategy doesn't work anymore because also this film are too brutal for my liking. If you ask me, there's something going wrong!

Gaelic football and Hurling

hey guys (: 
I've been studying the culture topics and while reading the handout about Gaelic football and Hurling I realised that I didn't really get the rules while reading them so I decided to watch a youtube video to get a better insight. You should know that I've never been a fan of watching sport. I like to it but I never enjoyed watching it. I don't know why but I just think it's boring. But these two videos are really hilarious and I definetly enjoyed watching them. I know that both, Gaelic football and Hurling, shows elements of different kinds of sports but seeing it is way more fun than just reading about is and I think it's fascinating how well the different elements are combined (:
For them who haven't looked up this topic yet and don't know what I'm talking about: Gaelic football shows skills of soccer and rugby and is played with a round leather football which is comparable to a hard volleyball. Hurling shows elements of Lacrosse, Baseball and Hockey and is played with an axe-shaped stick similar to a hockey stick.
But I really recommend you just watch these videos yourself and see what I'm talking about ;)

Martin Luther King Day - 21st of january

One of the american CLI's we have to study is the one about Martin Luther King and his famous speech "I have a dream". Since you're all very well informed about this topic I don't have to fill you in but I just want to say that I think it's really great what Martin Luther King achieved and, most important, how he achieved it. I wanted to post about this already yesterday but since I had been busy all day long I didn't get a chance ;) but know I have time to share my opinion with you. Like I wrote before, I am really fascinated by MLK's achievements and I think we all should follow his lead and accept each other as we are, no matter where we're from and what we look like. In my opinion it's awful that there are still people who discriminate African Americans due to their skin colour and as long as it's that way there's still room for improvement. What I also really admired about him was that he fought for his dreams in a nonviolent way. More people should try this way ...