October 27, 2010

A fantastic autumn day at Hönggerberg. In and around the Friedhof Hönggerberg there are really some extraordinary views. It is very peaceful but a bit awkward to wander around in graveyards, especially when you walk in to a group of people about to bury one of their loved ones. I am not a big fan of the church and I am not sure but I might not even be a member any more but whenever it comes to funerals they are doing a great job. I read a couple of years ago that now when people are not believers anymore they go around spreading their ashes a bit everywhere and that in some places in Switzerland, like Zermatt, they start becoming really annoyed with all Germans going there to spread the ashes of their dead. I think it is more that they annoyed with Germans in general because ashes are biodegradable and unless you believe in ghosts I don't see why they should create any trouble.

In France they are still striking as that is what they do best. It is quite difficult to sympathize with the French movement that are against lifting the retirement age from 60 to 62 when all countries I have ever lived in have a retirement age of 65. The poor frenchies might also loose their 35 hour work week which must be really hard when all their neighboring countries are working 40 hours a week. I am not claiming that there are not problems in France and their economy but if they worked a bit more and went on strike a bit less I am sure that many problems would solve themselves. The most ridiculous thing is when the Lyceens (people in high school) are also manifesting as if the "old people" are taking their jobs. It is so obvious that they are just happy to skip classes and hardly know what they are protesting against. No wonder they will not get any jobs when they graduate if they spend all their time demonstrating in the streets instead of learning something useful. In the end they can't all become union leaders. I know I sound terribly conservative but sometimes I just can't grasp what planet these French people are living on.

In Switzerland the extreme right party SVP has a new slogan "Swiss votes SVP" which is a rather silly slogan as only Swiss people have the right to vote. I guess they expect 100% of the votes in the next election.

October 20, 2010

A really nice walk is to go from the ETH, passing the University and then down to the Kunsthaus where there is currently a great Picasso retrospective from his early years until 1932. It is more or less the same exhibition that Picasso himself set up in Zürich more than 70 years ago. If you are interested in art there is a well done audio guiding that explains all his different phases. If you are not interested in art it is still very beautiful to walk around there. Without any difficult interpretations Picasso simply made fantastic paintings and you don't need to have specific knowledge or passion for art to enjoy that.

October 13, 2010

Bahnhof Enge and around in kreis 2. This is a really beautiful part of the city that I visit much too rarely.

This week is indeed the week of the miners. The 33 miners trapped in a mine in Chile all got rescued and the longest tunnel in the world, the basis tunnel of the Gothard pass here in Switzerland, 57 km long, was finished. Both exploits were huge successes, the miners in Chile was saved 2 months ahead of schedule and the two tubes of the Gothard tunnel met at only 8 cm divergence. I hope that the aftermath of the events will be as positive as the feelings this week. When your trapped in a black hole for almost three month I guess a lot of things will happen in your head, apparently one guy decided to get married but I wonder how many of the guys decided to get a divorce or make another radical change in their lives. You can do an awful lot of thinking in three months. I am also curious to see how many of them that will stay in the mining industry.

With all the glory being cast on the miners this week I wonder if this will be the new dream job for young boys.

September 28, 2010

A walk on the Züriberg, where you can be pretty sure that people have more money than you do. It is not that they necessarily earn more money than you do. Take the Züri king of brats, Carl Hirschman, that everybody loves to hate who has zero declared income but still lived permanently in a suite in Hotel Dolder (see photo above) until he got thrown out for too much partying. On Züriberg you also find the headquarter of FIFA.

In the swiss parliament they discussed yesterday whether music should have the same importance in school as sports. The debate was mainly focused about what music bring to individuals but music in school, free for all, can actually turn out to be a rather good business. In Sweden we always had free music classes for everybody who wished to learn an instrument or to form a group. Now Sweden is the third largest music exporter in the world with hundreds of millions of benefice, only exceeded by the US and UK.

On Sunday the World War 1 will officially end and be put into history as Germany will do the last payment of the reparation determined in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It will be about 94 million dollars and one can only imagine how a German taxpayer must feel paying this 92-year old dept in these hard times of financial crisis.

September 22, 2010

The new sport center at Science City, ETH Hönggerberg. The fancy building stood two years before it got completely flooded during the rains in July. Now it has to be dried out for a cost of 2 million Swiss francs and will only open again in October.

In the elections in Sweden the left made the most disastrous election ever whereas the right Alliansen made made a big move forward. No wonder when the left goes so far into people meddling in peoples private lives and removing their rights to their own choices as to encouraging the Swedish women to use a breast pump in order to give the maternity leave to the fathers. It is difficult to compare the Swedish left and right with the blocks in other countries as the Swedish right still is pretty left of the right in other countries. The biggest chock in the election was that the extreme right party made it into the parliament making neither of the blocks being capable of forming a majority.

In Switzerland two new members of the Federal Council was elected today, one of which was a woman. This is the first time ever that there is a majority of women in the government. Not that it really matters as the Swiss government is known to have almost zero power but one can only hope that it will be a trendsetter for different areas.

September 1, 2010

ETH Hönggerberg.

A crazy pastor in Florida wants to organize a burning of the Koran. This is an event that should, if media had any conscience, have passed unnoticed and no one would have cared. Instead media all over the world are blowing up the story and Obama needed to comment and beg the pastor not to go through with it. It is pure idiocy that media take notice of these kind of affaires. Of course fundamentalists think that we are evil if it gets published every time a wacko gets a crazy idea in his head. On the other hand it might be fair, because every time a group of 10 or more Muslims burn a western flag it gets exploited in the same way to make all the westerners believe that the entire Muslim world is worked up about a theme that the 95% of the people don't care about at all. I guess that we just have to taste a scope of our own medicine.

August 25, 2010

Josefwiese with a nice café in the park and a picture from the Hardbrücke station.

A large part of the Americans are all worked up about a new Mosque that will be built close to Ground Zero in New York. It is such a shame that they don't take this opportunity to show the Muslim world that they are supposed to be a country of tolerance and freedom of religion. You can question whether these people know if there is a difference between fundamentalists and moderates. They call Ground Zero a sacred place but it is only too sacred for a mosque but not too sacred for a strip club that is in the same block. As Obama is supporting the building of the mosque the Americans are taking it out on him and 1 out of 5 seriously believes that Obama is a Muslim. Scary that these 20% also have the right to vote.

In Chile 33 miners are trapped in a collapsed mine and their saving is estimated to take four months. I can't imagine what it must be like to be trapped underground like that for such a long time, four minutes would be too long for me. They can get supplies but the hole that they are drilling to get them out is too small for nine of them to get out unless they loose weight. That's what I call a motivation to diet!