[:de]Selfies sind mittlerweile ein Teil unserer Social Media Existenz. Wir, bzw. viele von uns (ich auch ;-D) machen sie mittlerweile ständig und überall: vom Wohnzimmer bis zur Konzerthalle. Selfies werden oft als oberflächlich und Exzess der Selbstdarstellung verteufelt, doch nicht alle sind so. Ich persönlich mache gerne Selfies, weil ich es mag mit der Kamera zu spielen, versuche dabei aber auch, mich selbst etwas auf den Arm zu nehmen. Schließlich sind diese Selfies doch auch irgendwie armselig: man hat nichts besseres zu tun, als ein Foto von sich selbst zu machen? Ähm...ja, traurig.
Ein weiterer Aspekt ist die Verfremdung der Bilder. Filter und die Wahl der Perpektive sind noch harmlose Werkzeuge, um sich selbst ins beste Licht zu rücken. Richtig hart wird es, wenn ordentlich retouchiert wird. Ist es nicht furchtbar, wenn man eine Person trifft und merkt, dass sie komplett anders aussieht, als auf ihrem Facebook-Profilbild?...
When you talk to friends or family about their biggest anxieties, being alone is often one of them. When you're in a relationship, you fear abandonment, when you're single, you strive to find the next guy (or girl). Being alone is equaled as being a failure. You're not in a relationship because you're not attractive enough, sitting alone at home on a Saturday evening means you don't have any friends, etc. This is a failure of society. It is automatically assumed that the lack of company isn't the person's own choice....
I've just read an amazing article about the Death Penalty in India and like its author I'm totally against all forms of Capital Punishment. Still, I am interested in what my readers are thinking about this topic, so I made a poll where you can vote for or against the Death Penalty. Of course the voting is totally anonymous, so don't worry about me seeing your name/IP address or anything like that.
Please leave a comment here if you want to say something more about this issue. Below you can find "Reasons against the death penalty" with a few comments by me and also the article I mentioned above.
Reasons against the death penalty (by antideathpenalty.org)
1. Executions cost more than life in prison.
$2 million per person vs. $500,000 (4x as much!). Free counsel for defense, for appeals, maximum security on a separate death row wing.
...
After two decades of extraordinarily rapid economic growth, people in China aren’t much happier than when they started, suggests a new review of happiness and national income in the world’s largest, most economically accelerated country.
On the whole, China’s wealthy are slightly happier than before, but little appears to have changed among middle-income earners. Among lower income brackets, life satisfaction seems to have dropped precipitously.
These trends are not an argument against capitalism or economic growth — but they do hint at shortcomings in using standard economic metrics as shorthand for well-being.
“There is no evidence of an increase in life satisfaction of the magnitude that might have been expected to result from the fourfold improvement in the level of per capita consumption,” write researchers led by economist Richard Easterlin in their May 15 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper....
Best Picture:
"War Horse"
"The Artist"
"Moneyball,"
"The Descendants"
"The Tree of Life"
"Midnight in Paris"
"The Help"
"Hugo"
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
Best Actress:
Glenn Close, "Albert Nobbs"
Viola Davis, "The Help"
Rooney Mara, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, "The Iron Lady"
Michelle Williams, "My Week With Marilyn"
...