Online Podcast

I listened to two different podcasts.

The first one is called "ScotFoot:Thursday 8th November 07". It can be found here - http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/scotland/scotfoot/scotfoot_20071108-1209.mp3
It is about the football match between Glasgow "Rangers" and "Barcelona". Listened one time. Native speakers, fast speaking and using football related vocabulary. But since I am a football fan it was not hard for me to understand them.

The second one is called "Amanda Penrose Hart: New Paintings". It can be found here - http://arttalk.podomatic.com/enclosure/2007-09-14T23_41_26-07_00.mp3
The host is talking with Amanda Penrose Hart about her new paintings, paint usage, light/shadow technics. Native speakers, speaking rate is average, but the vocabulary is rather sophisticated, since I am not into painting very much. So I listened to it twice, just to be sure that I understood everything right.

Gunnar Heinsohn "Sohne und Weltmacht: Terror im Aufstieg und Fall der Nationen"

I have recently read a review for this book written by a sociologist, economist and genocide researcher of the Bremen university. In his book he tells about the causes of waves of violence in third world countries, of frequent terrorist attacks and so on. His theory is, that if the percentage of the young men (15-29 year old) in the country is bigger than 30%, then there will be a risk of violent acts. He studied the demographic situation in Germany and in many countries nowadays. In Germany the proportion between 40-44 year old men and 15-29 old men is 100/50, whereas in Afganistan it is 100/403. Bigger number of young people creates tension, because young people are more energetic, they can act, protest against something. And it is a force, soldiers, who can fight real or imaginative enemies.
There are more interesting thoughts, examples and conclusions there. And I seem to agree with the writer's point of view.

Thoughts About Modern Cinema

One day I was comfortably sitting in my chair having a supper, when I decided to turn on TV. I am not a fan of TV-watching, in fact I don't do it at all for my own reasons. But it was like a voice from the inside telling me to do this. So I did it. I can't remember what the channel was, but there were a lot of smart-dressed people in a room talking about modern cinema. Most of the movies that they were referring to were mainstream popcorn flicks, such as Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Resident Evil, Transformers, etc. And those 40-50 year-old men and women were so angry and amazed by the modern cinema, that their faces were just turning red when they were spitting negative reviews of these movies. Moreover they were talking that the cinema itself, as a form of art doesn't have a future. I should say that was very funny. Serious people talking about movies for kids and teenagers and searching for deep thoughts, perfect acting abilities and intelligent screenplays. I wonder if they are familiar with movies by David Lynch, David Fincher, Nolan and Coen brothers, Emir Kusturica, Lars von Trier, Aleksandr Sokurov, Takeshi Kitano and many many other talented filmakers. Or they are so closed-minded that they watch only those movies that are being shown in the local movie-theaters...