UPDATE 17.05.2008: A few hours ago the CAS (basically a court for sports) decided that the prosthetic-limbed runner Oscar Pitorious will to be allowed to start at the “normal” Olympics in Peking this year (and not the Paralympics), if he is able to qualify by beating the time of 45.95 seconds for 400 metres (his record is 46.56 seconds so far). As you can read below, the IAAF decided in January 2008 that he had unfair advantages over other athletes and therefor denied him access to the Olympics; Pistorius appealed the decision and won.

–

Due to the massive number of doping reports in the last year, I had several discussions with friends about doping, drug-abuse and cyber-limbs in sports.

I think everyone would agree that tournaments (e.g. the Tour de France) should be as fair as possible in order to keep them interesting – which is one of the reasons why female do not compete versus male athletes (at least in disciplines where the body plays a key role), and which is one of the reasons why doping is not allowed in sports; you are not allowed to have an advantage over other athletes, because it makes the whole thing boring.

(Now, of course one could argue that sports per se isn’t fair, because Michael Jordan was born a better sportsman than me, but that’s just life I guess – on a statistical average, talking about sports worldwide here, we will find a bunch of athletes with the same physical conditions.)

A few days back Oscar Pistorius, a double-amputee sprinter, has been denied a shot at the Olympics … for being too fast. The runner — who uses carbon-fiber, prosthetic feet — was reviewed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (or IAAF), a review which found the combination of man and machine to be too much for its purely human competitors. According to the IAAF report, the “mechanical advantage of the blade in relation to the healthy ankle joint of an able bodied athlete is higher than 30-percent.” Additionally, Pistorius uses 25-percent less energy than average runners due to the artificial limbs, therefore giving him an unfair advantage on the track… or so they say. Oscar is expected to appeal the decision, saying a lack of variables explored by the single scientific study calls for deeper investigation into the matter.

The IAAF rule 144.2 prohibits:

(e) Use of any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides the user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device.

For me, the question arises: why not just open a “free for all” category in sports? Why not allow people to take drugs and implant cyberlimbs?
From the point of law, people are allowed to harm their bodies (this was, by the way, a heavy argument against the ban on smoking), you cannot arrest someone for hitting himself on the head, cutting or harming himself in any other way (authorities may arrest people who endanger their own lives, but that’s an entirely other point here).
Ethically, there wouldn’t be much of a difference to trapping people on islands and making a movie out of it, seeing people with phobias being confronted with them on television, or having people take place in selection tournament for becoming a wife of a racist and chauvinist millionaire (who already has had 5 wives).

The main argument against it – and it weighs heavily – is the argument of children and choice; Russia and other countries (I’m not that much into sports history, just trying to make a point really) once had a reputation for heavily doping their sportsmen and sportswomen during childhood who lateron had massive advantages (until they reached the age of 25 and died), and one can expect the same to happen again if this “free for all” category would be implemented: young children, somewhere in third world countries, receiving implants and massive doping from the very early days on; in the (near) future one might even consider athletes getting bio-engineered for the purpose of being successfull in one specific discipline in their lives …

sources:

• engadget.com
• IAAF report on that case
• nature news article on recent cloning breakthrough
• sport.ard.de

Don’t stand at my grave and cry. I am not here. I did not die.

I’d like that.

And here the confirmed full version of the poem (not the earlier version usually printed on postcards etc.), written by Mary Elizabeth Frye:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

(Thanks to Alice – I didn’t even know the line was from a poem)

Zu Beginn der Legislaturperiode hat er sich wiederholt sehr stark fuers Sparen gemacht, und war einer der wenigen, der haeufiger unpopulaere Stellungen bezogen hat, und zwar mit Vehemenz, wenn es um die Konsolidierung des Haushalts ging. Und er haette ein sehr beachtliches Ergebnis vorweisen koennen, wenn “die Krise (TM)” nicht dazwischengekommen waere.

In der ZEIT war vor einigen Wochen ein Interview mit Steinbrueck, dass ich abermals sehr sympathisch fand.

Nun, da die Bundesregierung in Zeiten von sinkenden Loehnen, steigender Arbeitslosigkeit und stagnierendem Wirtschaftswachstum erkannt hat, dass Rentner die zentralste (da groesste) Gruppe von Waehlern sind, die man zur Wiederwahl bedienen muss, wurde eine Rentengarantie verabschiedet. Ich persoenlich finde das sehr schwierig, weil ich den Spass direkt (Steuern) und indirekt (weniger Geld z.B. fuer Bildung – irgendwo muss das Geld ja herkommen) bezahlen muss, und nicht der Meinung bin, dass es Rentnern in Deutschland besonders schlecht geht (im Vergleich zu anderen Gruppen). Im uebrigen machen Renten in Deutschland mit 80 Milliarden Euro ziemlich genau 25% des Haushalts aus – Prozente stetig steigend.

Steinbrueck hat zwar fuer diese Regelung gestimmt (was ich sehr schwach finde), hat allerdings unmittelbar danach lautstark Kritik daran geuebt.

Tagesschau.de schreibt:

Während andere Menschen derzeit um ihren Arbeitsplatz bangen müssten, “steigen in der Krise die Renten so stark wie seit drei, vier Jahren nicht”, sagte der SPD-Politiker der “Frankfurter Rundschau”. Der jetzigen Rentnergeneration gehe es “so gut wie niemals einer zuvor”. Die “Gekniffenen” seien dabei die heute 25- bis 35-Jährigen. Steinbrück prophezeite, dass der Politik mittelfristig eine Debatte ins Haus stehe, wie sie mit den Finanzierungsgrundlagen der sozialen Sicherungssysteme in Zukunft umgehe.

Aus der SPD gab es natuerlich massive Kritik an Steinbrueck fuer seine Aussagen – u.a. von Olaf Scholz, der das ganze mehr oder weniger initiiert hatte, und vom Sozialexperten Karl Lauterbach, der Steinbruecks Kritik “intellektuell nicht nachvollziehbar” findet.

Nach einem Tag bereits gab es allerdings Rueckendeckung fuer Steinbrueck, u.a. aus den Reihen der Union (z.B. von Jens Spahn, Rentenexperte, und Wirtschaftsminister Guttenberg), und auch “Genossen” stimmten in die Kritik Steinbruecks ein (z.B. Walter Riester).

Auch der Bund der Steuerzahler kritisiert nun die Rentengarantie als deutlich zu kostspielig fuer die “Junge Generation”, Norbert Bluehm nennt sie “Pfusch” und “Ablenkungsmanoever”, Renten-Experte Bernd Raffelhüschen (Direktor des Forschungszentrums Generationenverträge) “eine Umverteilung zugunsten der Rentner auf Kosten zukünftiger Generationen und der heutigen Jugend”, und der Vorsitzende des Sachverständigenrats der Bundesregierung Wolfgang Franz einen “Suendenfall”; usw …

Kurzum: da wird zur Zeit – was natuerlich nicht anders zu erwarten war – mal wieder auf Kosten der Zukunft Wahlkampf gemacht.

Update:
Tagesschau.de hat gerade ein Interview mit Karl-Rudolf Korte (Professor für Politikwissenschaft an der Uni Duisburg-Essen) online gestellt, der meinen Standpunkt nur unterstreicht.

It has long been a well known and widely acknowledged problem that “helping” other countries by providing them with free food doesn’t help at all, and simply destroys the national markets (the local food producers can’t sell their own food, this bringing the country into an even worse economical situation). Of course this phenomenon is far more complex, but you know what I’m aiming at here).

The G8 have decided to forthwith support countries with development aid going more or less directly into the food – production (farmers, etc) and thereby supporting the market of the country that is receiving help in order to build their own proper economy. This seems like a very big step to me. Moreoever, it has been agreed upon paying 20 billion US-$ to the poorest countries.

Of course, this is not enough – as some organisations pointed out after the conclusion of the conference – but then again, it looks like a first step.

By the way: Germany is the second biggest donor of development aid (with 0.38% of the gross national product).

– Source: tagesschau.de

– Update (just links, I’ll update text later):

• http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/desertec114.html
• http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/desertec108.html

Of course I hope it didn’t hit any innocent bystand, but from what I’ve read this is pretty improbable.

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