tapmag

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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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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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.

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The CDU has a new website up for its 2009 campaign called teAM Deutschland. AM stands for Angela Merkel, which is about as clever as playing “Angie” by The Rolling Stones at every campaign rally.

But, the creative minds of the CDU didn’t not stop there. tapmag can’t help but recognize the new logo from some other quite successful campaign…

The German election 2009 might look just like the US election 2008—literally.

(via Subjektivitaeten)

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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The Trouble with Bubbles

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.

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One of the greatest dangers facing American democracy today is extreme partisanship. The division of public and politics along party lines hinders political discourse and halts social progress at great costs to society. If little else, Americans can agree on that. But, as soon as you ask who is responsible for political bipolarity, people are divided: Fox News or the liberal media, fundamentalist evangelicals or the eastcoast elite, rich republicans or wealthy democrats, SUV drivers or treehuggers.

“Split: A Divided America” is a documentary that shines a light on the roots and consequences of this political divide. While it can’t solve all the problems and leaves the viewer with open questions, there are still some insights to be drawn from it.

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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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After Tom Cruise tried to revamp the image of the Germans in America and elsewhere with his Stauffenberg movie, it’s time for Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt to tear it apart, piece by piece. America’s favorite movie villain just won’t leave—long live the Hollywood Nazi!

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