I wanted to put this up a few days ago, but I didn’t have the time to do it, so here it finally is: my opinion on Brett Ratners “gay slur” and him pulling out of the academy awards.

Brett Ratner, a director whose movies include Rush Hour and X-Men, was supposed to direct the Oscar ceremony – until he offended half of Hollywood that was. When he was asked about his opinion on the importance of rehearsals during a Q&A for his latest movie, he gave the now infamous answer: “Rehearsal is for f*gs”.
He was subsequently heavily criticized and, as a result of the incident, decided not to be part of the Oscar production. I am all against discrimination in every form, but I had hoped that he would withstand the criticism and explain his comment. Please don’t get me wrong: I have gay friends and I know what challenges they’re facing. 

I do think that our society (maybe it’s just the Hollywood part of it?) is getting way to sensitive though. If people get so upset about a single word, how are we supposed to concentrate on the real issues?
Maybe it’s just me, but my home country has quite a difficult history yet I’m not offended by any jokes or remarks people make, no matter how offending they are. I have no problem whatsoever to see past what these remarks are: simple words.

I know that circumstances might be different for other people and groups, but in the end these words and their meaning depend on one’s personal point of view. I would have hoped that the reaction was more of a “seen this before, let’s move on” one instead of the one that actually took place.

Adapting or acclimatizing can take a considerable amount of time – especially if one is going through a major change. When I moved to Canada a little over a year ago, there were numerous things I had to get used to, from different phone number formats and postal codes to university forms and regulations.

I didn’t really have problems getting used to most of these customs as most of them are somewhat similar to the ones in Germany. As long as you’re open to change, trying to understand it and, as in my case, initiated it yourself, it is easier to deal with certain changes and customs.

Some are positive, too: Even though I had heard about the Canadian politeness before but I’m still amazed how many random people actually hold doors open for strangers, at least in Nova Scotia.

There is only thing I still haven’t quite got used to. Back home, every price tag includes tax, whether it’s bread or a car. Before I moved to Halifax I was under the impression that especially computers and other electronics were a lot cheaper than in Germany, it turns out that was because of the non-included tax. I had some discussions with other international students and we agreed that the system is confusing.

I’ve heard Canadians of all ages say the same thing: “This piece of furniture was only $100!” I always wondered about that, as the real price must have been $115, at least in Nova Scotia. Personally, I don’t care what something costs before tax – everyone has to pay tax and in the end, to me, it’s what’s missing in my wallet that counts.

I realize though, that that’s probably just what Canadians are used to – or I’m not (quite yet).

Skype is a fantastic invention. I remember reading about those old videophones in a magazine a very long time ago, thinking they would never be a success. It turned they never were a big success. However, they spawned the idea of video communication.

When I lived in New Zealand and Australia for about a year, Skype was a great tool to keep in contact with my friends and family. I now use it every week to talk to my parents and friends back home.
When I visited my friends and family in April I was surprised or even shocked by how much some of them had changed in a relatively short amount of time, especially those who I hadn’t seen via Skype in a while.

I remember seeing one of my friends after about a year of traveling and not being able to see him on video – I was surprised to see how much he had changed. The internet offers so many possibilities today to maintain regular contact, even with friends that are not very close.

It is personally immensely helpful for me to be able to see and interact with my family and friends every once in a while. And it’s free – which makes it all the better.

Halifax wins $25 billion contract

I wanted to write about this earlier, but studying and midterms kept me from it – just like everyone else at the Mount this time of the year it seems.
So Irving Shipbuilding got the $25 billion contract to build naval ships for the Canadian military. 25 billion, that’s 25,000 million – an incredibly large number. Although I’ve only moved here a little over a year ago, I think I have a very good idea of what this number means for Nova Scotia.
My hometown is very much like the province: Very small, only a limited number of inhabitants and running a deficit every year. It also has much of the same infrastructure and ship builders, that were very successful until the 1990s.
Some might argue that the money could have been spent elsewhere but the fact that the navy will have to decommission the old ships remains. What a great opportunity for Nova Scotia, the contract will basically provide job security for a whole generation of workers at the ship yard and the money will trickle down to other businesses and as taxes back to the province.

Quo vadis, Euro ?

Being from Europe and having money invested back home in Germany, I follow the news on a regular basis, especially related to the European debt crisis. The euro was initially introduced in 2000, as the next step in creating a stronger and closer Europe. While especially the media in Germany questions the use of the common currency and its burden for the German taxpayer, the German economy highly benefits from the euro as it is one of the strongest export economies worldwide.
When countries like Greece or the eastern European states joined the Euro, they were suddenly able to borrow huge amounts of money for relatively low interest rates as opposed to before, when their old, weaker currency didn’t allow this. As in Greece’s case, this borrowing got out of hand and some of those countries are now facing the consequences or even bankruptcy.

Everybody knows that the more people you want to agree to something, the harder it gets to reach a solution. This is exactly what’s happening right now: Every country has to ratify the expansion of the euro stability fund, essentially lending or giving money to those almost bankrupt countries. Slovakia voted for the expansion today as the last of the euro members, but not without the former government disbanding. It will be interesting to watch the development of the common currency, I personally believe that Greece will go bankrupt and one can only hope that a spreading of the debt problem can be avoided before another worldwide financial crisis starts to build up – the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and its aftermath was a mere two years ago.

Steve Jobs

I’m not and never have been a fan of Apple products, but with Steve Jobs passing away yesterday I have to admit that the world has lost a great innovator. While I personally like to build my own computers and save money, Apple offers a complete package where hardware and software are working together very well. This convenience comes at a price, especially the Apple laptops are very expensive. 

I remember that I always used to make fun of one of my best friends for using a Macintosh computer, ten or twelve years ago those were relatively rare and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Steve Jobs had just joined Apple for the second time after being fired from his own company in 1985. He still had the vision of making a computer that was so easy to use that no previous experience was necessary. The iMac started Apples success story, with the launch of the iPod ten years ago being the next step in the company’s goal to expand their product range to everyday items like music players and cell phones.

Apples strength since then has always been the incredible innovativeness of their products, the iPod, iPhone and iPad were all products that hadn’t been on the market before, at least not with the typical Apple package, everything was just well-rounded and went hand in hand. The launch of the new iPhone 4s just one day before Steve Jobs’ passing is a significant step for the company: This is the first time that Apple isn’t leaping ahead of the competition again, their product is merely catching up with the competitors’ products.
It will be interesting to see how Apple will recover from the death of its mastermind and creative genius and if they will manage to innovate in the future as they did in the past.