Cordula’s Web Blog

Since Cordula’s Web is based on public domain poems, stories, and images released under permissive licenses, we heavily rely on sane legislation regarding Copyright and the Internet as a whole.

Therefore, we strongly oppose SOPA and PIPA, two controversial proposals of US laws designed to give huge media conglomerates and the executive branch the power to shut down any website in a purely arbitrary way, without judicial oversight and due process. Those proposals, should they be adopted, have the power to break the web in a fundamental way. Just imagine Google being shut down for automatically linking to sites with content that may offend some lazy fat cat in Hollywood!

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East Summit of the Tres Picos del Amor Mount in Argentina. By Fabien Quetier.

So it’s this time of the year again, where people are supposed to enjoy and celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas and welcome the New Year with overwhelming joy. Undoubtedly, many of you do, and I wish you all the best: enjoy these days as if they were the last, for they very well may turn out to be just that. Drink from your dear ones’ cup of kindness, and be generous and kind to them in return, not out of gratitude but from the depth of your heart. Your little world will be better for it… and if only for a while.

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The leading topic of the Kirchentag 2011.

Every second year, German protestants organize a nationwide meeting and get together (“Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag”, or just “Kirchentag”) in varying cities. This 2011 Kirchentag in Dresden features a beautiful heart-shaped logo, that I wanted to share with you.

As you can see, the leading topic of this Kirchentag is “… da wird auch Dein Herz sein.”, an inspiring quotation from the Bible:

[For where your treasure is,] there will your heart be also. — Matthew 6:21.

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If you thought the previous posting was too dark, think about this: the European Commission is keen to freeze, modify or even lift the Schengen Agreement, in order to prevent a couple of impoverished Tunesian refugees from leaving Italy and entering France and other European countries. It’s not much, no big deal… just another brick in the wall.

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Japanese fireworks for Cordula.

With 2010 on its well deserved way out, we’re looking at the coming year with a mix of pessimism and optimism, cynicism and idealism.

So what’s in store for us in the coming year? Will there be new wars? Probably. Will the economy collapse? Maybe… but do we really want to know for sure? Will some of us die of broken hearts? Certainly. Will others be so happy that they’ll die from a heart attack? It could happen! If there’s one reliable fact in this Circus Maximus we use to call our world, that’s the everlasting duality of pain and joy, sadness and happiness, despair and hope.

Will 2011 be the year of ethnic cleansing in a deeply shaken and insecure Europe, eager (again!) to get rid of its hated minorities in a time of economic hardships? One shouldn’t rule it out. Will 2011 be the year America lost its edge and turned isolationist again, leaving the world in shambles, unable to fend for itself? It’s on the horizon. Will 2011 see the rise of authoritarian regimes all around the globe — where not already established –, the return of Censorship, suspicion and fear? Probably. Will corporatism, cronyism and fascism grow further in 2011? Of course they will. Will banksters get even more taxpayer’s monies and the poorest of the poor even less to barely survive? You bet they will!

Fortunately, we humans have a wonderful ability to ignore bad news, and look elsewhere, when things get rough. When the outside world spirals down the drain, and nobody seems to care for the Big Picture, there’s still our private life, our friends (at least those who didn’t desert us and those we didn’t disappoint and hurt) and the family. They are all that really matter. When the lights go out in this Circus, when the ever faster spinning wheel of this world-gone-crazy has come to a grinding halt, when the music stops playing… it’s time to get back home, hopefully with the people we love. May they be there, when we need them the most. May we be there for them, in case they need us too.

It’s time to wish you all a Happy New Year 2011, and to a very special friend a Happy Birthday too.

A little candle in the dark for our friend Cordula.

Today, October 22nd, is St. Cordula Day! Of course, it is our duty to commemorate the name day of our beloved friend.

Numquam tui obliviscar, Cordula: you’ll stay forever in our hearts.

Lighting a little candle in the dark…

A friendly reminder to all of us incurable dreamers whose wishes didn’t come true last year… it’s Perseids’ time again! The peak is expected around August 12th, so hurry, catch your own shooting star, and send your dearest wish to the sky. May our dreams come true… if not in this world, then at least in our imagination.

Countless authors, poets and bards wrote about broken hearts, and how much they hurt… undoubtedly, a powerful metaphor, universally understood, regardless of age, culture and upbringing. Who didn’t feel the sharp emotional pain and distress of losing a loved one? But can hearts really break, physically?

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Punxsutawney Phil, the prognosticator of all prognosticators has spoken: it’s six more weeks of winter!

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So here we are again, on the Eve of 2010, waiting for… nothing but more of the same cruel pain. For hope, like a dying ember, loses with each passing year more of its flaky light, and despair sits firmly as ever in the deserted mansion of the soul.

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