Party like there's no tomorrow ...

... but hopefully there will be many tomorrows and a future everybody can look forward to: old and young, no matter what class or financial status, no matter how able-bodied, what skin tone, gender, religion, no matter who they love... Wishing you all the best for 2024!

photograph via

Ten Thousand Thanks

Ten thousand thanks for following the tenth year of "Diversity is Beautiful", a wonderful year with some progress for some marginalised communities in some places (and none at all in others), a year of reflection, joy and sunshine (which is good unless too much due to the climate change), a year of excitement and Blur's appearance (scream!) at Wembley Stadium this week. Thank you!

Happy 2023!

Thank you so much for dropping by in 2022 and all the best, all the happiness, and all the love for 2023!

photograph via

Nine Years. Nine.

Nine years and still so much to write about. Nine years and so happy that you are there, still interested in diversity and its beauty. Nine years, 9.992 followers, 13.558.835 views, 1.330 blog postings... Thank you so much for following, commenting, sharing your thoughts, for just dropping by. And, nine hugs from a distance. Andand, it is written on the sunny sky with nine clouds seen from this very pool with more than nine ladies that there shall be at least another nine years "Diversity is beautiful". Thank you again.

photograph via

Happy 2022

Dearest friends of Diversity is beautiful, it is time again to wish you all the best for the coming year... have a wonderful, interesting (but perhaps a bit less interesting than the past two years), sparkling, sunny, bright, friendly, pandemic-free, joyful, fabulous, fun, warm, relaxing, adventerous, and marvellous year. Buon anno!

photograph via

Celebrating Eight Years. A Party "Werner Herzog Style".

'I like to party, if by "party" you mean sitting alone in a darkened room contemplating the futility of human existence.' 

Werner Herzog

An "interesting" year has passed. Many people suffered from the symptoms of the virus, many died, many got insane and turned to conspiracy theories ... the pandemic was launched by Asians, by gays, by the Jewish, by non-Christians, by foreigners, lizards are coming ... When beds become scarce, we are willing to sacrfice the old, the disabled as if it were the most natural thing and no discussion follows. Half of the people lost forever were in retirement homes. Surely more could have been done to prevent their deaths but societies couldn't care less. Because age is not part of the diversity discussion. And if people die in other countries, it is because these "others" don't have such an advanced health system as "we" do.

This pandemic surely showed us our approach to diversity, the bias there is, the prejudices, the discrimination. It showed us who has the power to at least turn something into a discussion and who doesn't. Let's celebrate, nevertheless, and hope that in autum we will be smarter. I wish you all the sunshine there is, health, happiness ... and would like to thank you, again, for (still) following this blog. Thank you and stay healthy!

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photograph (c) by MLM

2020. Over.

"Stop pretending this nightmare will abruptly stop with the arbitrary changing of the calendar year." 

Werner Herzog



The thousand days of 2020 have flown by and we have finally reached the last day of the year: Thursday the 42nd of December, also known as the seventeenth month of the year. I wish you all the best for 2021, lots of love, health, sunshine, art brut, optimism, patience, hope, inspiration, wonderful adventures in jungles and under water, delicious food, beautiful inclusive design, happy-ends, and the most marvellous and diverse people around you. And thank you so much for following this blog.

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photograph (MLM), cat and bird inspired by the great Saul Steinberg, clock by twitter

Seven Years "Diversity is Beautiful"... No Seven-Year Itch. And a Bird Visiting Again.

Seven years, 1.041 postings, 9.887.621 views, and 7.403 subscribers ... not even remotely feeling that seven-year itch but still in the honeymoon phase ... because diversity still is beautiful, and there is still the need to raise awareness, and, mostly, because of you known and unknown subscribers, and you who have been following this blog for so long and are still leaving motivating comments after all these years. Thank you, you (yes, you!) wonderful people.



photograph (c) MLM

Farewell 2019

May the year to come bless us with patience, tolerance, and a sense of humour to deal with the passionately misinformed and with haters, with incorrigible racists, short-sighted ageists, ignorant ableists, inveterate sexists, narrow-minded homophobes, and islamophobes. Live long and prosper, dear subscribers, I wish you all the best for 2020!

Diversity is Logical. And this Weblog is Six Years Old.

After six years, 895 postings and 9.001.362 views, another big thank-you to my 6.731 subscribers. I would like to particularly thank those who in the past six years kept dropping by leaving lovely comments. Thank you ever so much and live long and prosper!



Spockified photograph by Paperwalker, original Spock painting via

Happy New Year! Cheers!

I wish you a most wonderful, exciting-relaxing, peaceful, sunny 2019, a year with less populism, less ageism, less sexism, less ableism, less homophobia, less islamophobia, less hate, ..., more love, more awareness, more tolerance, more empathy, more courage, more vision, more wisdom. Thank you so much for having dropped by in 2018. Happy New Year! Cheers!



photograph via

Half a Decade "Diversity is Beautiful" and Some Waving Mid-Century Vases

A twentieth of a century (how dramatic that sounds) has passed since I published the first blog posting. 744 postings, 6.297 subscribers, 8.061.294 views, and many wonderful comments later I would like to thank you again for not having become tired of this weblog, for your interest in my diversity selection and for still leaving beautiful comments. Thank you!



photograph by ML Moazedi, modified by Paperwalker

Suggestions for Collective New Year Resolutions

We will create a society with equal opportunities for everybody - no matter what age, gender, (dis)abilities, ethnicity, religion, no matter if straight or queer.
We will build cities that are accessible.
We will  not let populism use minority or disadvantaged groups to communicate simple messages ("us" versus "them") to create a polarised society.
We will remove the structural causes of homelessness.
We will create a society in which everybody has access to education and lifelong learning.



In 2018, I will...

... do anything I can do to combat ageism, to reframe ageing; I won't give up showing others the importance of valuing older people
... not lose my patience, will not lose my hope and belief in an intelligent society when hearing or reading discriminatory statements that are based on ignorance, fear or the need to construct a superior identity by creating an inferior "other"
... support projects that aim to raise awareness concerning racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia and islampophobia by writing about them and/or cooperating
... continue finding homelessness absolutely not acceptable for societies in the 21st century and - as I cannot change the system - make a modest contribution by helping at least one homeless person
... continue the project of raising awareness how to turn a/my city into a more inclusive city
... donate more often to the wonderful humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières
... focus my research on inclusion at schools, on diversity in class rooms
... continue showing people how beautiful diversity is
... be among the 8% of people who achieve their new year's resolutions.

Dear subscribers, I wish you all the best for 2018, all the best for our society. Thank you so much for passing by in 2017 and for leaving beautiful comments. Thank you for being interested in the beauty of diversity.

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Thanks, Paperwalker, for the photograph and the amazing drawings!

Diversity is flawlessly logical. Four years "Diversity is beautiful", Spock and my Vulcan ear.

Four years, 595 postings (24 of them on Star Trek), 5832 subscribers, 6.723.579 views, and thousands of interesting, logical and fascinating comments. Thank you so much and .... live long and prosper!



original image via, creatively modified by Paperwalker

Sorry

A while ago, I switched to comment moderation. In other words, currently comments do not appear without my approval. The reason why is that a person tends to run amok on my blog and this person's episodes get more intense from time to time. It will not stay like that ("comment moderation", I mean) ... in the meantime I would like to express my gratitude for your beautiful - and wonderfully sane ;-) - feedback and tell you that I am sorry for the delay of your comments before being published. Well, theoretically there may be the positive side effect that by stalking me online this person can at least develop some interest in diversity. Who knows?...



image via

Happy New Year!

I wish you a most wonderful 2017, a happy year, a year of wise and intelligent decisions, a year in which populism has no impact on society (or a least less than in 2016), a year of progress in awareness concerning racism, ageism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, islamophobia, and other -isms and phobias, a year in which we can clean up our 2016 footprints. I wish you a year of diversity and inclusion.



Here the original advertisement from 1968:



image via

Post No 500: A big thank you to all subscribers and a little tribute to my beloved 500

Posting number 500, a wonderful opportunity to thank you all for your interest in diversity and its intersection with arts, business, music, urban planning, Star Trek, ... Thank you so much for commenting, for subscribing, for passing by. I do hope that you will find the next 500 postings as interesting as the past ones. Grazie tante!



And here the original Fiat 500 advertisement (via):



Special thanks to my 500 for the inspiration and to Paperwalker for the "slight modification" of the vintage Cinquecento advertisement.

Three years. Time for the blue bird to visit.

Three years, 447 postings, 5121 subscribers, many many beautiful comments and just a few trolls or attempts to sell products for fast muscle gain on the comments section. Thank you so(!) much for passing by, for subscribing and - most of all - for your wonderful feedback, for sharing your thoughts. I do appreciate every single comment. Thank you. Danke. Grazie.



Photograph (c) Paperwalker

New Year Wishes Inspired by Saul Steinberg

A wonderful, beautiful, peaceful, inspirational, joyous, bright, and happy New Year! Felix sit annus novus, felice anno nuovo, ein glückliches neues Jahr, bonne année, akemashite omedetou gozaimasu, onnellista uutta vuotta, gelukkig nieuwjaar, ...



- Mask series by Saul Steinberg and Inge Morath: related posting
- photograph by Paperwalker, collage material (cat, mask design) by Saul Steinberg, the great

A second "sort-of-anniversary", me (photoshop) carving this weblog's name into a (real) tree, and a blue bird

Two years, 299 postings, 3867 subscribers and a great many beautiful, wonderful, thought-provoking, fun, and creative comments. When I started two years ago, I had no idea how this blog would develop ... and if, at all. I had no experiences with blogging, was not existent in social media (I still have no facebook account), thought it would take ages until somebody found an online article of mine, English is not my mother tongue and I am well aware of the fact that I'm quite lousy at commenting (my standard "thank you" responses in the past two years may seem unimaginative and uninspired but they really are the essence of what I feel reading your comments). The only thing I had was lots of ideas to share about one of the most beautiful things: diversity. And, from the very beginning, beautiful, motivating comments. Thank you so much for commenting, for subscribing, for just passing by.



photograph, bird and photoshop carving (a) Paperwalker

No trees in Brittany were harmed during the making of this picture ;-)