Call A Glacier

Ran into Kalle Laar who's done this sound installation for the Venice Biennal called Call A Glacier. He teamed up with the Commission for Glaciology at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and put a microphone onto the Vernagtferner glacier in the Ötztal Alps. So now, if you call

+49 - 89 - 3791 4058

you can hear the glacier melting. Rather noisy. Because it's melting. Fast.

Europa

Gotta admit watching Michael Moore's Sicko had the desired effect and made me glad we moved back to Europe. Sure it's propagandistic satire and in the usual Michael Moores style not quite acurate. After the French applauded the film frenetically in Cannes, because they're protrayed as living in a health care paradise they sheepishly told our film critic, that it's not quite that phantastic. And German healtcare sure is a two-class, expensive mess. But it's not the anarchy of pure profit margin mentality either. Social services somehow aren't seen as collateral damage yet. Take yesterday's fire alarm a few blocks down, which made us for the first time believe that our tax Euros are at work. A whopping eleven fire department trucks and cars decked out with tons of modern technology were there in a matter of seconds , just to make sure it was a false alarm. That's what makes you feel safe, not a permanent state of Code Orange alarm. Now this entry is of course the classic "Michael Moore in lefty Europe"-effect, where people watch his films and read his books just to reinforce their anti-american stereotypes. Works everytime.

6000 Years Ago

And you thought they were kidding.... Whilest on the subject - they just showed Jesus Camp on Austrian TV. Sure it's easy to get creeped out by those little American Christanoids. But things ain't all secular over either. Recently I found thes quote from our dear Bavarian Father. Last fall, Pope Benedict XVI stated clearly, at a conference at the Castel Gandolfo addressing the nature of evolution, "It is not yet the time to reconcile the two domains." And: "This is in the interest of regaining a dimension of reason, which we have lost." Now it turns out the backlash's been going a bit longer. Ralph Boent, novelist and former physicist with a license to run particle accelerators, told me that the last pope told a scientist colleague of his that all those great discoveries of physcis are just great, if they would just please let that big bang stuff alone.