Left-Handed Females are Underpaid

Source

For unknown reasons, left-handed men earn more than right-handed ones, but left-handed women earn less than average. 

Full article at Business Insider.

GCB Shares: Slutwalk, Plus Size Onlineshops, Men Speaking Out

Source

Coming Saturday, August 13, the Slutwalk Berlin will take place. What sounds a little strange is a demonstration for women's rights that has been taking place the world over. (I think the last I've heard of was staged in New Delhi.) Nadine Lantzsch is one of the local organizers and is still looking for helping hands.

Johanna shows us one of her favorite buildings in Germany: The Vitrahaus in Weil am Rhein.

This Vegan Life is proud of Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill for adding Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals to their reading lists. Way to go!

Passend zum Thema teilt Katharina Brunner einen YouTube-Clip, der die Spekulation mit Nahrungsmitteln erklärt.

Helga Hansen stellt in einem kurzen Post die junge pakistanische Außenministerin Hina Rabbani Khar vor.

Cathrin Karras bereist zur Zeit die Insel Borneo (gehört zu Malaysia) und beschreibt zum Beispiel das durch ein komplettes Alkoholverbot etwas, äh, "ruhigere" Nachtleben der brunesischen Hauptstadt Bandar Seri Begawan.

Luciana Schmidt hat eine informative Liste mit Plus Size Onlineshops zusammengestellt.

Der Spiegel teasert ein Interview mit Charlotte Roche an, in dem die Autorin zum ersten Mal über ihre überwundene Mager- und Alkohlsucht, ihre Depressionen und den Unfalltod ihrer drei Brüder im Jahr 2001 spricht. Das neue Buch der Autorin erscheint am kommenden Mittwoch.

Boy's Corner

A cool new site called Men Speaking Out displays photo messages from guys supporting women's equality to other guys who haven't given the matter much thought yet. I like! (Via.)

Today is Be Body Positive Day!

Never heard of the Be Body Positive Day? Me neither, until Anna Guest-Jelley featured it on her blog recently. The idea is to do one thing today that will make you feel great about your body. As to me, I'll do Yoga, but Anna has a list of fifteen other ideas for you try if that's not for you (yet). In any case, it's never too late to start loving your body! Find out more about the initiative at the body positive.

There's a Special Place in Hell for Fashion Bloggers

Via

A couple of months back I saw someone walk around my Berlin neighbourhood wearing a tote bag saying There's a special place in hell for fashion bloggers. It made me smile although I do like me my fashion blog every once in a while and don't believe in hell at all. Well, now I found the same slogan stitched onto some customized jeans vest and thought I'd share. If you're still looking for your own perfect tote bag, check out the GCB ones. Only last week, Franziska Schmid (whom I haven't seen in way too long) unpacked hers and put her favorite every day items on display: Bloggerinnen It Bag!

GCB Tests: The KitchenAid Cookbook!

With my KitchenAid Artisan Blender also came the German version of a KitchenAid Blender Cookbook. Along the lines of its English language counterpart "24 hours a day" the book is entitled "Rund um die Uhr". Quite obviously, the idea is to show that a blender is useful for the preparation of most any meal or drink - no matter what time of the day, whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinner, baby food or cocktails. For a German Einschätzung whether this cookbook is of any use at all (it is!) and whether it's also suitable for vegetarians like my humble self (it is!), please follow the jump!

Shake, Doggy, Shake

Photo: Carli Davidson

This is one of a series of awesome photographies of dogs shaking off water. Carli Davidson, the photographer, is based in  Portland, Oregon, has previously worked at the local zoo and has specialised in animal photography. Check out her portfolio or take a look at my source for more hilarious images.

Thank You for Reading!

I cracked the 100 RSS feed subscribers mark! If you'd like to know what that might be, check out last year's articles on RSS feeds in English or German. Personally, I still use Google's Reader to stay on top of what's happening in the blogosphere. Currently I've subscribed to more than one hundred different blogs from all around the world; and besides the usual Blogspot and Wordpress stuff, I've been getting into tumblr, too - have I mentioned this here before? I like the platform for its easy to use approach and visual simplicity, and of course couldn't resist starting my own: yogannina, an image-only collection of Yoga shots I liked. (Just in case you'd like to subscribe to another one of my outlets, I figured. ;) ) Every now and then, I even add photos of myself doing poses... like that rather crooked looking eagle pose I attempted on Erfurt's cathedral steps last month.

Congratulations, Smilla!

Smilla Dankert's blog anders-anziehen turned two a couple of days ago and she wrote a wonderful birthday speech!

For German Readers: Vulva verzweifelt gesucht

Photo: Mädchenmannschaft

Die Mädchenmannschaft erklärt, was an der Aussage “Mädchen kommen mit einer Scheide zur Welt, Jungen mit einem Penis. Bei Jungen ist der Penis außen am Körper. Bei Mädchen sieht man nur einen Schlitz.” nicht ok ist: Vulva verzweifelt gesucht. Zum Thema passend habe ich im Juni die Dokumentation The Perfect Vagina gepostet. Absolut sehenswert!

Why Won't Women Win Literature Awards?

Rare female winner: Orientalist Annemarie Schimmel

- an ever-interesting question pondered once more in two recent German articles: Novelist Zoë Beck wonders about a lack of female award winners in crime writing in her article Sei wie das Veilchen im Moose... and Jessica of recently founded group-litblog lesErleben asks why the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade has only ever been awarded to six women in its sixty-one-year history (I counted 6 1/2, because in 1970 it was awarded to the Myrdal couple - but what difference would that make?): Schreiben nur Männer engagierte Literatur?! If you've been a reader of GCB for a while, you might also remember poet Katharina Schultens' January 2011 article on the role of female lyricists in German publishing.

GCB Tests: My First Homemade Juice!

Immediately after unpacking my KitchenAid Artisan Blender, I needed to try it out. So without further ado, I threw together a couple of ingredients I happened to have at home: A pear, a small apple, half a honeydew melon, a carrott (not pictured), 1 cm of ginger, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup (I got mine at Alnatura), and a little fresh lemon juice. To see how it went, how much juice I produced and whether it tasted well (I can give away that it did!), please follow the jump for a first German Erfahrungsbericht.

GCB Archives: July 2010

In July 2010 I introduced to you Angela, who was diagnosed with Huntington's disease, famous Austrian litblogger Christiane Zintzen, entrepreneur Miriam Paulsen, digital life-lover Kathrin Ganz, and transsexual blogger Svenja (pictured). My favorite clip of the month would have to be the one of J.K. Rowling's Speech at Harvard. For a full list of last July's posts, please click here.

On Fighting Depression

Image: Postsecret

For German Readers: Mutterseelenalleinerziehend

DSDS-Casting: Querkopf Meike Büttner
© Deutschland sucht den Superstar

Noch neu am Bloggerinnenhimmel leuchtet der Stern von Maike Büttner, ihres Zeichens Autorin des Blogs Mutterseelenalleinerziehend. Nach anfänglicher Skepsis bin ich mittlerweile mehr als überzeugt von ihren Beiträgen. In ihnen erzählt sie nicht nur aus dem nicht immer einfachen Leben mit Kind, sondern postet gelegentlich auch schöne eigene Songs wie diesen hier. Als ehemalige DSDS-Chef-Kandidatin ihre leichteste Übung - saucool!

What is a Creative Commons License?

Via.

More info on Creative Commons licenses at Wikpedia in English or German.

Anna Guest-Jelley of Curvy Yoga

Anna Guest-Jelley is a yogini who likes to share her experiences not only in her teaching, but also on her blog Curvy Yoga. With lots of empathy and great intuition, she focuses on issues like self-esteem, weight, and body image. Anna had to force herself through more than 65 (!) diets before she could accept that living a joyful life is not down to body size.

To find out more about Anna, her blog, and her work, just follow the jump below.

o2 Can do - if Pressured Hard Enough!

Yesterday, I had a phone fight with my mobile provider o2. Despite of my status as "premium customer", they refused to downgrade my super-expensive and outdated contract to one that would suit my current needs much better - and save me around 50€ a month. That is, they refused service until I threatened to write about their attitude on this blog. I had never previously used GCB as a leverage, and was very surprised when my problem - which had been deemed as a lost cause before - was solved immediately. To me, this is a scandal itself. What about all those poor non-blogging souls? Aren't they entitled to fair conditions, too?

On popular demand (again, on Facebook), I put together what I remember of my conversation with o2's customer service in German. The transcript is probably shorter than the actual call was, but it should be fairly accurate. Oh, and did I mention that speaking to o2's customer service costs 0,30€ cents per call of late?

GCB Tests: KitchenAid!

As hinted at in yesterday's post, I'm the lucky new owner of a KitchenAid Artisan Blender. Hooray! Even after just two days of usage, I'm delighted. For more pictures, to see what colour machine I got and how the unpacking and first installation went, follow the jump for an extensive Testbericht in German...

New: GCB Tests!

In an informal survey recently conducted on Facebook, I asked how you guys would like it if I - aside from interviewing female bloggers every now and then - tested products. To my surprise, many of you were very fond of the idea. You even agreed that it wouldn't matter whether these products had anything to do with social media at all, as long as they were not clothing or make-up. Being a person whose wish lists were always way too short ("But there must be SOMETHING you want?!"), only one thing came to mind... And now guess what's in that parcel? ;) Stay put to find out!

MYM - Hold Me Down

Save a few glorious exceptions, I'm not a big fan of intros in songs. Not even in R&B and hip hop, where some considerate producers have kindly started to export them into whole separate tracks in the early 1990s already. However, only yesterday Starrene Rhett introduced new British artist MYM (short for her first name Maryam). At 23, she managed to become the first female her producers Double AK featured, so hooray for that! If you like the clip below, listen to more of Maryam's story in this video, where she also performs her first single Hold Me Down unplugged. 

To skip the intro here, just fast forward to around a minute - shortly thereafter, the beat sets in.  

Clara Heissler of Vegane Freude

One of the blogs I really enjoy reading has been Clara Heissler's Vegane Freude - probably, because it revolves around topics I'm personally interested in: Food, Yoga, all sorts of ethical issues surrounding the treatment of animals and mindful living in general.

Follow the jump to find out about Clara's understanding of a good blog, how to write the perfect recipe post, and her offline interests.

Self-Deception

Via.

Graphite drawing by British artist Gillian Lambert.

If you Women aren't Feminists, what else Might you be?

Reading a couple of recently published statements on German blogs, I have come to wonder - if you women aren't feminists, what else might you be?

Source

Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, exploitation and oppression. 

- bell hooks -

Ich bin keine Feministin, aber dass Frauen, egal ob im Beruf oder zuhause, selbst in westlichen Ländern immer noch weniger wert sind als Männer, das ist verkehrt.

Ich bin weder eine Feministin, noch bin ich politisch korrekt. (...) [Aber] Ich weiß um die Ungerechtigkeiten unserer Gesellschaft und ich kenne das große Ungleichgewicht zwischen Männern und Frauen.

In all diesen Situationen habe ich „Feminismus“ gesagt, aber es ist dafür einfach ein doofes Wort.

A Brief Set of GCB Shares

Photo: Ninia LaGrande

With around a thousand fresh blog posts waiting to be read, I am still trawling through my RSS reader in search of interesting news to share with you. Here's a bunch of first noteworthy finds: 

Tasya van Ree, photographer and eponym of one of my GCB bags, has been interviewed by French Tetu Magazine. A transcript is available on her own blog. 

Fashion blogger Anna Wegelin aka Lachsbroetchen has been featured in the current German GLAMOUR magazine.

Franziska Schmid, green lifestyle blogger, is now part of a new high-profile blog team: Berlin is[s]t vegan.

And on a less professional note: Ninia La Grande travelled the Baltic states and has been sharing her holiday experiences (see photo above).

Let's Take Back the Internet!

Activist Rebecca McKinnon asks in this TED talk: How do we design the next phase of the Internet with accountability and freedom at its core, rather than control? The New York Times has a summary: A Call to Take Back the Internet From Corporations.

Via.

Bachmannpreis @ Wörthersee

In case you've been wondering where I was all last week: I spent my holiday in Klagenfurt, Austria, where one of the most important prizes in German literature was awarded after a three-day reading competition. Sounds good? Don't worry if you missed it - all submissions are freely available and translated into eight languages at bachmannpreis.eu. And while my favorite text by Linus Reichlin didn't win anything, I had a bunch of nice sunny days at the Wörthersee nevertheless. For a longer personal commentary on the competition in German, check out my other blog words on a watch.

Almost Back!

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** This is the last in a series of holiday posts. I'll be back any minute now. **

So You're Telling me There's a Chance?

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** This is part of a series of holiday posts. Even bloggers need a break sometime. **

This is What Oprah Winfrey Looked like in 1998

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** This is part of a series of holiday posts. Even bloggers need a break sometime. **

I am a Thousand Winds that Blow

Poem by Mary Elizabeth Fry. Via: Lisa Rank

** This is part of a series of holiday posts. Even bloggers need a break sometime. **

25 Ways to Wear a Scarf

For some reason I can't seem to embed the clip here, so we'll have to make due with its link:  

25 Ways to Wear a Scarf in Under 5 Minutes.

** This is part of a series of holiday posts. Even bloggers need a break sometime. **

Eating Animals

Photo: Aaron Ruell

If you're looking for a new read, try Eating Animals. 

That book is just waiting to be read by you.
German blogger Julia of besserlesen has recently written a review.

** This is part of a series of holiday posts. Even bloggers need a break sometime. **

Stress Release

Source

Click to enlarge.

** This is part of a series of holiday posts. Even bloggers need a break sometime. **

Even Bloggers Need a Break Once in a While...

But thanks to automated posting there'll be lots of interim entertainment on here until I'm back next week. ;)

For German readers I can also recommend the brand new EMMA issue - it contains an extensive feature on women on the web or "Frauen im Netz" - and I'm in it! At around 10€ the magazine is quite pricey, but the dossier and other interesting articles like that interview with German national team goalie Nadine Angerer will compensate for your loss.

9 Months

Source

GCB Shares: Bavarian Beats, Gender Roles in Yoga, Slutwalks and Facebook-Marketing

Patience Steltzer ponders gender roles in Yoga: Does marketing Yoga to men reinforce gender stereotypes? She comes to the conclusion that despite differences in our physical bodies, there is an understanding that we all ultimately share the exact same energetic potential.

Katharina Brunner discovered the Beat Conducta Bavaria, an attempt by famous German hip hop DJ Sepalot of Blumentopf to mix Bavarian music with beats. While in theory, this sounded interesting, in practice it drove me up the wall!

Source: Design*Sponge

Design*Sponge shares a recipe for grilled vegetarian Portobello burgers that just look to good to be true.

Die Klappentexterin hat es tatsächlich geschafft: Simone Finkenwirth ist Online-Autorin des Jahres 2011 geworden! Kein Wunder bei so charmanten und originellen Berichten wie diesem hier über Kurzsichtigkeit, wie ich finde. Ich platze vor Stolz auf meine Re:publica-Kollegin!

Leonie vom Mädchenblog stellt sich eine Frage, die mir auch schon kam: Sind Slutwalks wirklich sinnvoll? Wir kommen zum selben Ergebnis - mitlaufen ja, aber nicht mit dem besten Gefühl. 

Elke Brüns stellt den Kunstband Armut in der Kunst der Moderne vor.

Franziska Schmid hat Patrick Bolk interviewt, Macher des bekannten Öko-Blogs Berlin is(s)t Bio.

Boy's Corner

Source

Absolutely crazy story about a homeless man stealing (and returning!) a $100 bill from a bank who was sentenced to 15 years and an ex-mortgage CEO who stole around $3 billion dollars from people and only got 40 months prison time.

Stefan Laurin sprach mit Philip Ostrop, dem Lokalchef der Ruhr-Nachrichten. Diese verlinkt nämlich seit wenigen Tagen in ihren Berichten direkt auf Blogs und Twitter. Ostrop, der privat auf Ostroplog bloggt, fordert: Mehr beta für den Journalismus!

Falls Ihr schon immer mal auf Facebook werben wolltet, aber Euch die Vorgänge zu kompliziert erschienen: Jens Wiese weist darauf hin, dass es die offiziellen Whitepaper zu Marketing und gesponserten Meldungen auf Facebook jetzt auch auf Deutsch gibt.

Annina @ Ruhrbarone.de

Berlin City Parliament elections are coming up in September this year, and Stefan Laurin kindly invited me to comment on all things related on his team blog Ruhrbarone. Not that I wouldn't enjoy social media-related topics anymore, but... here's my first guest post: Gestatten, Bezirksverordnetenversammlung!

What do Vegans Eat?

Mneme, editor of German blog consume. be silent. die. has listed her favorite vegan foods and beverages and has encouraged her readers to do the same. I'm not a full vegan, but a vegetarian who has, besides meat, stopped buying eggs, milk and cheese for home-use - so I thought I might still be eligible to participate. The list you'll find after the jump is obviously incomplete (I do not only eat that!) and has not been sponsored in any way.

For German Readers: Blogs als Mittel zum Zweck?

Auf meinem Facebook-Account habe ich mich gestern mit der Frage "Produkttests auf GCB - ja oder nein?" beschäftigt - und heute früh passend zum Thema das untenstehende Interview mit Vasco Sommer gefunden. Zufällig flatterte mir eben auch noch ein Rant von Luciana Schmidt in den RSS-Reader: Unter der herzig daherkommenden Überschrift Ein bisschen Kritik ♥ lässt die Beauty-Bloggerin ordentlich Dampf ab. Sie beschwert sich über den "Ich will, ich will"-Grundsatz der Bettelblogger, die alle Nase lang inhaltsleere Schrottblogs erschaffen, um Gratiskosmetik abzustauben. Für alle, die denken, dass ein guter Blog durchaus in fünf Minuten gewuppt werden kann, beschreibt Lu noch einmal, wieviel Arbeit hinter ihrem steckt - satte zehn Stunden am Tag! - und was ihrer Meinung nach guten Content ausmacht: Thematische Abwechslung, ehrliche Statements und eine zugrundeliegende Motivation, die über "Leser- und Produktgeilheit" hinausgeht. 

Photo: Lu zieht an

Da ich mir der Problematik, die Lu da benennt, durchaus bewusst bin, hat es mich umso mehr überrascht, dass mich fast alle von Euch, die sich gestern auf meiner Wall in die Diskussion eingebracht haben, dazu ermutigt haben, bei Gelegenheit ruhig auch Produkte zu besprechen, die mich interessieren. Unter anderem wurde darauf hingewiesen, dass kluge Vermarktung meines Mediums mein gutes Recht sei, und sogar darauf, dass ich im Grunde mit meinen Linkempfehlungen ebendies bereits mache, bloß unentgeltlich.

Mich freut das natürlich, denn obwohl derzeit nichts Konkretes ansteht, ist gut zu wissen, dass Ihr für derartige Experimente offen wärt. Ich kann Euch auch beruhigen: Schminke gehört definitiv nicht zu meinen Hauptinteressen. Ich hatte eher an geschlechtsneutrale Produkte und technische Geräte gedacht. Mal sehen, ob und was daraus wird, in Lus Risikogruppe der gierigen Null-Reflektion-Blogger dürfte ich mich mit GCB ja eigentlich nicht bewegen. ;)

For German Readers: 40% der deutschen User lesen Blogs!

Via: Robert Basic

Ein spannendes Interview zur Rettung des Blogaggregators Rivva und der Rolle, die Blogs in der deutschen Werbelandschaft spielen (sollten), findet Ihr bei Robert Basic. Er hat sich mit Vasco Sommer von Mokono unterhalten, einer Berliner Firma, die nach wie vor BloggerInnen sucht, die sich für die Monetarisierung ihrer Inhalte interessieren. Wichtiger Fakt: Über 20 Mio. deutsche Internetnutzer lesen regelmäßig Blogs - das sind mehr als 40% der Menschen, die sich hierzulande im Netz bewegen. Wow, das sind viele! ;)

GCB Archives: June 2010

In June 2010, I introduced to you Anna, who cycles the world one city at a time, Pharmama, a Swiss pharmacist and mother, philosopher and linguist Lara Ghazal, famous Japanese chef Makiko Itoh, media scientist Daniela Reimann, fashion blog-icon Blica, and "Gespenst der Armut" Elke Brüns.

June was also a pretty good month music-wise, with, for example, Swedish-Ugandian artist Jaqee performing one of my favorite songs on here ever: Pink Drunken Elephant in an acoustic version. What a cool summer tune! If you're interested, please find all of June 2010's posts here.

Simone Fust of Pferdemaedchen

Today, please meet Simone Fust of Pferdemaedchen - the first horseback riding blog for urban grown-ups I've come across.

If you'd like to find out more about the pro's and con's of content management system Drupal, what blogging and making movies have in common, and what future plans Simone has for her blog, please follow the jump!

As a Woman in My 40s...

Photo: Source

Back in 2007 I felt almost proud when Britney, apparently on the verge of a nervous breakdown, shaved her head bald. Finally, she was doing her own thing - if only for five minutes.

The Grand Girls Anthology

Image: Sabine Delafone

Munich-based publisher Sabine Magnet is the initiator of a cool project called The Grand Girls Anthology, an almanac of women's views on various topics. The anthology is an independent compilation of works by women of all ages and nationalities, and all of its proceeds will be donated to charity organisations supporting girls. Currently, The Grand Girls Anthology is looking for submissions in English or German for the upcoming "Revolution" issue. For more detailed bi-lingual information and submission guidelines please check out the project's homepage.

GCB Shares

Image: Daniel Kornrumpf. (Via)

Annina-Amina #1:  Last week, Stuart Tiffen of Deutsche Welle gave me the opportunity to comment on the Amina hoax in English in his article Bloggers face credibility struggle.

Annina-Amina #2: Marcus Richter hat mir ebenfalls die Gelegenheit gegeben, etwas zu Amina zu sagen - dieses Mal auf Deutsch bei Radio Fritz ab Minute 28.

"Geht Ihnen Ihre Protagonistin beim Schreiben eigentlich auch manchmal auf die Nerven?" Diese und andere freche Fragen hat Krimi-Bloggerin Nantik dem Autor Oliver Bottini gestellt.

Gloria Magnifico berichtet über die immer noch bestehende Lohnungleichheit zwischen den Geschlechtern in der Schweiz.

Nachdem ich neulich eine Dokumentation über die super-coole Präsidentin der Frauenfußball WM Steffi Jones gesehen habe, hat mich die Vorfreude endlich gepackt - vielleicht ist ja sogar mal ein Stadionbesuch drin? Tickets gibt es je nach Spielort schon ab 15€. Wer den Anpfiff nicht erwarten kann: Nicole von der Mädchenmannschaft hat einen Artikel über Frauenfußball in Brasilien geschrieben: Superweiblichkeit und hartgekochte Bälle. Darüber hinaus bietet das MM-Team eine brandaktuelle Linksammlung zum Thema.

Photo:  stadtkind FFM

Boy's Corner

Leo wrote a personal post on what happens when being who you are challenges the norms.

Feierabendyogi shares 11 reasons why you should drink more green tea.  

Kai Müller, aka der Stylespion, hat am Fotomarathon Berlin teilgenommen. Was das ist, wie das geht und was dabei rausgekommen ist, zeigt er hier. Klingt nach einer guten Sache - trotz der Teilnahmegebühr von knapp 30€!

The Perfect Vagina

What an important documentary by Heather Leach! The clip is comprised of three parts, so when you come to the black bits, just fast forward until it continues. (Via Selbstdarstellungssucht)

There are 3 Billion Women Who don't Look like Supermodels and Only 8 Who do.

1998 Body Shop ad, rediscovered at Eco Yogini.

I remember using this postcard as a bookmark, taking it with me everywhere I went. I must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time that advertisement was running, but its slogan has stuck with me ever since.

So, in spite of your being sold to L'Oréal back in 2006, and even though I know that all that glitters ain't gold:

Thank you, The Body Shop, for your values, your campaigns, your mostly eco- and animal-friendly products and your principle of self-respect.

People on Social Networks are More Willing to Trust Others

Image: Source

...finds a recent study by the Pew Research Center entitled Social Networking and Our Lives. 

AP has a summary.

Humanity in Fashion Award

Heads up, budding designers! German eco-fashion brand hessnatur once again invites applications for their Humanity in Fashion Award - an award honoring stylish green fashion. Quality directives are strict (the only downer being that leather is allowed as material), but with a cash prize of 25.000€, an own women's capsule collection and lots of PR for the winner, participation is lucrative.

More info on the running competition in both German and English is available here, more on last year's winner Janosch Mallwitz on hessnatur's German company blog. Submission deadline is 15 September 2011, so sharpen your pencils and get drawing!

Amina is a Man, and He's Sorry - so am I!

I have shared the news on my Facebook yesterday already: Alleged gay Syrian blogger Amina is in fact a male American student whose imagination ran riot. While I wouldn't normally waste precious blog space on hoaxes like this one, I feel obliged to comment on this case as only a week ago I urged you, my readers, to sign a petition... for nothing! For that I would like to apologize. 

Rest assured that before writing posts, I double-check my facts with international news organizations like CNN. And albeit I'm "just a blogger", like any professional journalist, I aim at finding two independent sources to confirm a story before I suggest anyone undertake action of whatever kind. This time around, due to the uncertain situation of the media in Syria, established journalists and bloggers alike were forced to take at face value what "Amina's cousin" wrote on "Amina's abduction". Unfortunately, people the world over fell for a notorious liar who claims to be sorry but probably really enjoys his five minutes of fame - or shall I say his five minutes of shame?

While I have some sympathy for the false estimation of his that he would bring forward the issue of homosexuals living in Syria, I have great doubt that this is the case. What I do know, though, is that the author jeopardized the reputation of people like myself: bloggers and social media activists whose right to exist pretty much consists in the credibility of their causes. If we are no longer seen as dependable by our audience, we might as well pack up our profiles and weblogs and go. 

While to a fictional character like Amina Arraf that poses no problem, things look different for social media professionals who are dependent on the reliability of information shared online. And while some of us, like translator Katy Derbyshire, see certain scientific benefit that might spring from Amina's case, others like Helga warn of the increasingly dangerous situation real bloggers see themselves in in countries like Syria. Thanks to a confused member of our (democratically privileged) Western society they might no longer be taken as seriously as they need be.

As to my own involvement in this, I can only say that I'd rather sign one petition too many than one too few. I hope you agree.