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I always feel somewhat left out when the President of the United States is elected. Why are only US citizens allowed to vote? He or she is the leader of the free world, right? I live in the free world, I want my vote. [Read more]

Call him the Black Kennedy, the Tiger Woods of politics, or the Second Coming. The epithets used to describe presidential hopeful Barack Obama (D-Ill) are a testimony to an election that is so much more than politics.

There is something close to biblical about rain, when the skies give way to an almost cathartic downpour, draining off the drudge, sins and conversation-residuals clogging the streets. In any Hollywood movie (especially considering the writers’ strike) it could have been a Second Coming scenario, yet it was an unassuming Monday with weather more befitting of an unassuming British city pronounced Gloomster (but probably spelled Gleucmcester) in the midst of Berlin. The prophesized savior of American politics, Barack Obama, drew close to a 100 people, who sought shelter in the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung on this rainy, borderline-suicidal Monday evening, to learn about the self-professed harbinger of a new era – in a country so far from theirs.

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Is that even possible? According to their web address, www.onevoiceforeurope.eu, the newly founded European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) intends to provide that voice. Is it yet another attempt to save Europe from irrelevancy? And what exactly will that voice be?

With prominent members such as Marti Ahtisaari, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Joschka Fischer (and a bunch of other people that you’ve probably never heard of), the ECFR is based quite apparently, and not just in name, on the American Council on Foreign Relations. And since it is funded primarily by the liberal American billionaire George Soros, you can bet that transatlantic relations will be on the top of its agenda. [Read more]

This is a liveblog from the grand opening of the Graduate School of North American Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Since all the speakers hold their speeches in German, this post will now switch its language:

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We’re all used to watching MTV videos with more licking, sweating, and rubbing than half of the usual soft core porn movies.

Same goes for the TV station’s shows, where participants habitually get down and dirty in hot tubs, and stage dramatic cat fights which end up in some nice girl-girl cuddling (just watch The Real World!). Therefore, it was just a matter of time until porn would start looking like music television. Well, that time has come, and it ain’t as spicy as you expected.

AfroDite Superstar had its official European premiere at the Second Pornfilmfestival Berlin yesterday. It tells the story of two girl friends, who are trying to break into the rap world. One of them, Afrodite, is discovered by talent scout CEO and put into the spotlight, while the other one, Iris (notice the inventive names!), is the real talent who writes the songs Afrodite shines with. This is a blow to their friendship and Iris falls for the female stylist, who is really the big boss, but has to stay in the background because she isn’t accepted as a woman in the rap world. Another rapper and a dialect coach who teaches the girls some street cred are also involved. So far, so soap opera.

Various members of the cast get together in occasional sex scenes – and I do mean occasional, given that this is a porn movie the ratio between sex and talking is just depressing. Also, the scenes don’t spare a certain unintended comic, which the audience realized as well. Some of the highlights that caused outright laughter were a very sexy pair of underwear from one of the actors as well as the lines “I cannot do this. Your father – he is like a father figure to me!” followed by the almost untakeably corny line “Meet me in my room- in five minutes.”

What makes one wonder is that this movie is part of the festival’s female film section, where movies are shown that take on a woman’s point of view. Is that what female porn looks like?

A story that would fit The Bold and the Beautiful, hardly any getting-it-on, and no truly explicit action? This movie represented all the clichés about women and porn – that women need an extensive storyline, that they need a friendship part and lots of dialogues. Well, that has proven wrong here. The movie is a mix of Britney Spears’ Crossroads and quite a bit of your daily soap opera, while it tries to imitate MTV with confessional- type talking to the camera by Afrodite and a show that looks like TRL. Maybe this was intended to be a striking parody on today’s music television and the quest for street credibility, but it ends up being more corny than classy.

AfroDite Superstar oscillates between fun and funny, but a little more spice wouldn’t have hurt this one.

By Jessica Binsch

You can watch the trailer here.

2006 for Germans was not only the year of the World Championship. On the sociopolitical level there was also a broad discussion about nationality. Photographer Lars Borges found himself in the middle of this discussion or as he puts it “in an ocean of black, red and golden flags”. Is young Germany ready for a new national conscience? Or is it the first signs of the old demons returning? [Read more]

“The Dynamics of the City – Fragmentation and Concentration” was the topic of a keynote lecture by Columbia University Professor Peter Marcuse (if the name sounds familiar, you might have heard of his father Herbert) at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin tonight. The lecture was the opening of a conference on cultural diversity in New York and Berlin. [Read more]

I’m just home from Berlin Alexanderplatz and I must say that I have probably seen the most crazy thing in my life.

Namely: several thousand people trying to get into a new store at midnight. There was police and ambulances and dozens of security people who where beginning to get quite aggressive and also lots of people that got frustrated because they wanted to buy cheap stuff.

Some students made fun of the whole situation by chanting “Buying, buying!” and tasteless stuff like “We are the people!”. All in all it was a really uncomfortable situation out there.

I perfectly understand that people don’t have much money these days and that they wanna take advantage of this situation but what I just experienced made me think about the state of humanity really. This was seriously a disturbing experience. People were out there in the middle of the night getting aggressive because they wanted to buy cheap. It wasn’t like anybody’s life would have depended on this.

I uploaded a short video of the incident. Just see for yourself…

On August 23 the House of World Cultures (or: Haus der Kulturen der Welt) will be reopening after a year-long refurbishment. The great news for all Berlin dwellers or those who have the opportunity to get there is that they have a compelling program in stock for us:

A two-month arts and cultural program featuring New York and marking the 50th birthday of the building. The New York festival offers a perspective on the city’s current art scene as well as on cultural and historical developments since the 1960s, featuring art, music, literature, performances and film.

Log on to www.hkw.de to get more info on the program. We will definitely keep you up-to-date on this…