100 posts
Forcing ACTA on EU citizens
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Was it too much to tweet the following to @davidmartinmep – the new ACTA rapporteur in the European Parliament: 100 demonstrations this week & 1.8 million signatures against #ACTA cause for rejection of current IPR agenda? On the face of it, yes,...
ACTA: 1.717 million ”misinformed” citizens to ignore
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I was reminded by @alexanderhanff on Twitter that the EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht asked members of the European Parliament to disregard public opposition to ACTA (Infojustice). In my view De Gucht's attitude (letter at La Quadrature du Net)...
”Hollywood versus The People” ACTA causes flood of protest
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What the Pirate Party founder and inimitable digital freedom evangelist Rick Falkvinge calls the ”Hollywood versus The People” Anti-Counterfeiting (and much more) Trade Agreement ACTA has caused the biggest political protest storm ever among EU c...
ACTA text in 22 languages - Soon a million protesting online
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The Anti-Counterfeiting (and much else) Trade Agreement #ACTA is a hot subject on Twitter and the online public sphere in general. Different campaigns aim at defeating the treaty. A short while ago @Avaaz had reached 963,079 online signatures on a gl...
High hopes for the first European Citizens’ Initiative
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Less than ten weeks remain before EU citizens will be able to register the very first European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). From 1 April, citizens will be able to call on the European Commission to propose legislation on any issue where …...
The Greece of Theo Angelopoulos | Costas Douzinas
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Forget deficits, debt and corruption. Theo Angelopoulos, the film-maker who died this week, captured the true Greek soulThe sudden death of Theo Angelopoulos, the greatest Greek film-maker, while shooting his latest film on the current troubles, has...
Fair Access to Higher Education
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Higher education in Europe is going through the biggest changes since the Renaissance. With the UK’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat government increasing tuition fees, cutting university places and slashing universities’ budgets, the debate around...
Rest in Peace dear Theo. A tribute to Theodoros Angelopoulos
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In the Summer of 2007, Theodoros Angelopoulos attended our Cinema and Media conference at Istanbul Bilgi University Communication School… Rest in peace Theo… View the story “R.I.P. Theo Angelopoulos” on Storify Storified b...
A Surreal Proposal Comes From the EU Commission.
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TheE.U. Commission has a real job to win hearts and minds of Europeancitizens for this weeks launch of the European Citizen's Initiativeprogramme.Thisbrand new tool for participatory democracy....... will strengthen thedemocratic foundations of the U...
Some Of Our Finest Achievements Were Inspired By Great Speeches
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As people, we are inclined to live as groups, despite our never ending protestation that we are all individuals. The phrase you are unique, just like the rest of us helps explain that social groupings are at the heart of our behavior. It is little wo...
My Perspective at 50: A Scholarly View on Modern Society from the Cheap Seats
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Exactly half a century after I came into this world during what in the Northern hemisphere is the coldest week of the year, I set out on an open-air jaunt over snow-plowed roads on a bright, bitterly cold morning on a bike that had been “given” (...
Where is the innovation in EU education?
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Guest Post by Dan LUCA. Blog: Casa Europei The European Union can encourage and facilitate cooperation between Member States in order to develop quality education, however unlike in other policy area’s the EU cannot harmonise any law or regulat...
Plans to Close Hundreds of Schools Met by Protests
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It has been estimated that up to 800 schools will be closed in Poland this year, after 300 were shut down in 2011.The official reason given for the liquidation of schools throughout Poland is the upcoming demographic downturn that will result in a de...
A literati roundup: “12 Writers Who Still Refuse to Use Computers”, digital humanities, 2011 Words of the Year…
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Orhan Pamuk is one of them… 12 Writers Who Still Refuse to Use Computers Jan 1st, 2012 Computers are incredible tools: we use them to connect around the world, gather all of the information in the universe, find inspiration, and maybe play a f...
"Turning Back the Clock: Hungary reverts to Selective Education" by Carl Rowlands
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Since winning an election in 2010 with an extremely vague programme, Hungary’s right-wing Fidesz government, under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has engaged in a massive legislative tranche of...
Ja visst gör det ont för kultursektorn
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Karin Boye dog 1941, vilket är 70 år sedan. Från och med den 1 januari 2012 får hennes verk spridas fritt. Nu har upphovsrätten på allt hon skrev äntligen gått ut, och hennes lyrik och prosa tar sin rättmätiga plats i det gemensamma kultura...
EASO Inaugural Consultative Forum: Preliminary Thoughts
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"We're here, tell us how to support you!" This was the civil society's battle-cry today at EASO's first Consultative Forum meeting, a repeated appeal to EASO by all present to establish the most effective structure within which to share experti...
About Youth Camps
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When mothers and fathers lookup for youth camps for their kids, they ought to first of all validate the accreditation of your camp. Lots of people mistake licensing for accreditation, but the two are not one as well as the very same point. Licensing...
On this day : December 12
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ON THIS DAY, DECEMBER 12. 1941 –Adolf Hitler announces extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery 1942 – World War II: German troops begin Operation Winter Storm, an attempt to relieve encircle Axis forces during the Battle o...
Eurozone crisis summit: what David Cameron will say
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Odd things happen in the early hours of the morning at European Union summits. Sometimes, the Justus Lipsius building on Rue de la Loi seems even to warp the very laws of physics. In one such remarkable event here this morning, a wormhole in the spac...
The body language in EU politics
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At the EU summit October 23 Herman Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barosso was rather loose and relaxed, when they met the press after hours of talk in the council. They were there to tell the press that they could not present a comprehensive package, bu...
Making a List, Checking it Twice
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Perhaps you overslept the 4:00 am sales on Black Friday or your friends and family do not understand the thrill of a waffle iron. To help you with the yearly chore of finding the perfect present, here are some books on Europe published this year that...
Catto’s Christmas Crackers
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The Catto Gallery in Hampstead traditionally offers an artistic pot pourri in December, and the Christmas Selection exhibition that opened there this evening is no exception. The variety of the artists shown is startling, both in medium and style. I...
Europe's crisis is an opportunity for democracy | Ulrich Beck
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Instead of Soviet-style German euro-nationalism, let us create a Europe of the citizens, a community of democraciesEurope already accomplished a miracle once before: enemies became neighbours. In the light of the euro crisis, the cardinal question mu...
Time for More Europe?
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A group of nine Spanish Bloggers have come together and written a Manifesto on things to improve Europe. There isn’t any political slant to this apart from trying to improve democracy within the European Union and improve the EU itself.
Dive in politics or the politics of diving
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It was late in the evening. As usual, I was taking part in a board meeting. Business as usual, you would say. Unusual was that this board was not political. In the last twenty years, pretty much any other meeting that I took part of was political. No...
EU: Federal Union Now – or never?
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First reaction: Wow! The Federal Committee of the Union of European Federalists (UEF) has called for a Convention to ponder changes to the EU Treaties. The resolution sees the need for a further large reform. Read on and see that the 13 November 2011...
11/11/11
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In Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate on 11/11/11 in 2011, costumes were the norm in the evening as revelers celebrated the numeric convergence. I suspect that unlike the Chinese, the Europeans were struck by the convergence itself, rather by any good lu...
A Good Movie: W.
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Oliver Stone’s “W.”, ths story of George W. Bush’s life and time in the White House, is far more workmanlike than his other movies. It’s not as memorable as “JFK” or “Nixon”, but I suspect that is...
A silent film…about Louis Armstrong!
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A new silent film about the greatest jazz musician of all time? At first blush, the most stupid idea since the chocolate fireguard. But the guy who thought of it, Dan Pritzker, is patently sincere: “I was listening to Armstrong, Duke Elling...
Ryan Anderson interviews Jason Baird Jackson on anthropology and open access…and an anthropology roundup….
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Anthropology & Open Access: An Interview with Jason Baird Jackson (Part 1 of 3) from Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog by Ryan During the last few weeks I had the chance to conduct an email based interview with Jaso...
More Europe Manifesto: pan-European lists and elected Commission president
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In order to overcome the crises in the eurozone and the wider European Union, a group of Spanish eurobloggers has launched an appeal for More Europe.You can read and sign the appeal on the More Europe blog. You can participate in the Twitter discussi...
Kurosawa’s Rashomon
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This evening we watched Kurosawa’s 1950 classic mystery crime thriller, Rashomon. The basic plotting device is brilliant in its simplicity. Four people – a woodcutter, a samurai, his wife and a notorious brigand – give their account...
Representing Rape Culture – The Dangerous Art of Rafal Karcz
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Trigger Warning! The latest series of works by the Polish artist Rafal Karcz is called “I wanna kill Cindy Sherman” – is it a coincidence that he references a female artist who has been viewed time and time again as … Continue...
WordPress.com Blogger Scores Book Deal for “You Are Not So Smart”
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According to David McRaney, “You may think that you’re a rational, logical being who sees the world as it really is. But you’re as deluded as the rest of us, and that’s OK, because it keeps you sane.” David is a journalist a...
Vildan Orancı’dan film kritiği: Margin Call, 2011 by J.C. Chandor
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Margin Call, 2011 by J.C. Chandor Herkes kendi cehennemini yaşar Feodel Lord’un tamamen kendi keyfine göre birini seçip öldürmek üzere olduğu, sayıca daha kalabalık olmalarına rağmen kimsenin karşı koyamadığı bir ortaç...
"Economic Crisis and Educational Renewal" by Bill Williamson and Frank Coffield
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We live in troubled times. The global economy is on the rim of an abyss and on planet Pundit there are new apocalyptic predictions of falling living standards, rising unemployment, increasing child...
More Europe Manifesto proposes education on European integration
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A group of Spanish eurobloggers has launched an appeal for More Europe, in order to overcome the crises in the eurozone and the wider European Union. I have mentioned their initiative to start a virtuous circle of development for the citizens of the...
More Europe Manifesto: EU symbols represent values
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As I mentioned here and here, a group of Spanish eurobloggers has launched an appeal for More Europe, in order to overcome the impending catastrophe in the eurozone and the wider European Union and to start a virtuous circle of development for the ci...
Volunteering – it’s not as hard as you think
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The European Year of Volunteering tour came to the UK last week, and took up residence in the Coin Street Community Centre. While there I spoke to Stephen Crocker, who ran the Leeds City Council initiative to have a Leeds … Continue reading ...
An Evening with Julian Fellowes
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Since its foundation 18 years ago, the Friends of Heath Library has organised 150 literary events in the 1930s single storey building that houses the library, right next door to glorious Keats’ House in Hampstead. The very first speaker was the...
I Want my Future Back
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I am angry. I am angry because the current generation of politicians is betraying my generation. How do I arrive at this conclusion? Let me go back a bit in history before I address the current situation. Two Generations of Great Leadership I was bor...
For proof of Leonardo da Vinci's genius, this is where you need to look
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The father of art history, Giorgio Vasari, tells a beautiful story about the Leonardo cartoon above: Finally, he made a cartoon, in which there was an Our lady and a Saint Anne with a Christ, which not only made all the craftsmen marvel, but when it...
new film on History Education: Ich bin
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During the time of Communism, a joke was often heard: "Is it possible to predict the future?" - “Yes, we know precisely what future will bring, our problem is the past, as it never seizes to change!"During the Second World War, remarkable figures o...
More new novels from Erkan’s favorite authors…
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view book The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates Release Date: November 1 “The Corn Maiden” is the gut-wrenching story of Marissa, a beautiful and sweet, but somewhat slow, eleven-year-old girl with hair the color...
A Great Book: Strange Days Indeed.
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A great read, indeed. I enjoyed it so much that I just have to give five stars to Francis Wheen’s “Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia.” The book is a look at some of political and social madness of the 1970s, primaril...
4 new novels from Erkan’s favorite novelists….
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view book The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides Release Date: October 11 It’s the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Der...
Bringing Europe’s cultural treasures to a new generation
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Imagine you have gold in a vault but you forgot where the key is. In times of crisis, there are not many treasures that Europe can use to boost growth and prosperity. There is one treasure we have however in Europe, for which we need a new digital...
A poet wins (Tomas Tranströmer)
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Good news is never stale, so even though I’m a few days late, I want to post about the poet who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. Announced by the Nobel committee last week, the winner is Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. Transtr
Bertelsmann Future Challenges
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Via Scoop.it – The Great Transitionvery interesting initiative to build global governance from the bottom-upShow original...
Terraferma, Emanuele Crialese’s Film About Migrants, Nominated as Italy’s Entry for Best Foreign Film Oscar Award
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From Adnkronos News: “Movie director Emanuele Crialese’s new film about the plight of migrants landing on the southern Lampedusa island from Africa will be Italy’s contender for the 2012 Best Foreign Film Oscar, a jury decided Wednesday...
