American Views Abroad

2010-06-06T16:17:00.007+02:00

Two articles on this first weekend in June:

A crack in the Stoic's armor at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/ a-crack-in-the-stoic-armor/ by Nancy Sherman
wanted to feel and process the loss. They wanted to register the complex inner moral landscape of war by finding their own emotions. .....For some, the war after the war is unrelenting. It is about psychological trauma and multiple suicide attempts, exacerbated by his own sense of shame
Yet in the more than 30 interviews I conducted with soldiers who have returned from the current wars, what I heard was the wish to let go of the Stoic armor. They in not being the Stoic warrior that he thought he could and should be.

And in this Sunday's Ideas Section of the Boston Globe is this interesting article comparing Americans and Europeans on individualism and conformity:

www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/06/06/sweet_land_of_conformity.

2010-05-09T12:27:00.001+02:00

A Devastated Berlin 65 years ago at www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-54631.html

2010-04-21T17:31:00.002+02:00

Europe may be facing an eruption in its economy as a fall out from the ban on flying these last few days, but the fall out over Goldman Sacks in the US is going to be far greater. Societies cannot control acts of nature. Volcanoes can lie dormant for centuries, but the potential for an eruption is always there. There isn't much anyone can do but accept what's happening, pick up the pieces, re-arrange priorities, rethink relying on the fastest way of traveling short distances and work things out.

Causing untold harm to fellow citizens through fraud, cover-ups, not revealing facts, making huge profits while producing nothing of worth gets to the core of what human beings can become when left uncontrolled and allowed to run amok with other people's money and property.

www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/19-3

Priceless: www.tomdispatch.com/post/175235

The Business of America is Kleptocracy by William Astore:

If we were to take an honest look at American's blasted landscape of 'losers' and the far shinier spiffier world of 'winners', we'd have to admit that it wasn't signs of onrushing socialism or fascism that stood out, but of staggeringly self-aggrandizing greed and theft right in the here and now. We'd notice our public coffers being emptied to benefit major corporations and financial institutions working in close alliance with, and passing on remarkable sums of money to, the representatives of 'the people.' We'd see, in a word, kleptocracy on a scale to dazzle. We would suddenly see an almost magical disappearing act being performed, largely without comment, right before our eyes.

2010-03-19T11:32:00.002+01:00

The long bitter winter left one spellbound and in a state of apathy. Spring hasn't arrived properly yet, but let's face it: of course it will soon be here. Nature may be moody but its rhythm remains untouched. It can't keep things under wrap like the Catholic Church and its stubborn refusal to take on its horrible legacy of child abuse. It has been sickening to watch how centuries of denying women rights and denying sexual feelings has led to those least able to defend themselves, children and young adults, being so misused, abused, and not given any sympathy of their plights. To be abused by a clergyman in such a position of authority is as unforgiving as being abused by one's parent. What's been interesting here in Germany is how the number of women in powerful positions in government has finally brought the bishops to their knees in forcing them to abandon secrecy and take the formal legal road whenever a crime has been committed or even a hint of a crime.

There are, however, other stories unfolding as well besides the usual about politics: the vote on health car, wars, massive unemployment, budget deficits..... There are individual stories like that of historian Tony Judt. He is, unfortunately, dying of ALS, often known as Lou Gehrig's disease but he is not going quietly into the good night. He is being unduly productive. He is now in the process of dictating his reflections in The New York Review of Books and this introduction to his terminal illness is moving, chilling and gets under the skin:

By my present stage of decline, I am thus effectively quadriplegic. ......To say the least, I am utterly and completely dependent upon the kindness of strangers (and anyone else). During the day I can at least request a scratch, an adjustment, a drink, or simply a gratuitous re-placement of my limbs ---- since enforced stillness for hours on end is not only physically uncomfortable but psychologically close to intolerable. It is not as though you lose the desire to stretch, to bend, to stand or lie or run or even exercise. But when the urge comes over you there is nothing ---- nothing---- that you can do except seek some tiny substitute or else find a way to suppress the thought and the accompanying muscle memory. www.nybooks.com/articles/23531

Judt has also released a new book Ill Fares the Land reviewed by Dwight Garner in NYT and IHT. Garner writes: ...a slim and penetrating work, a dying man's sense of a dying idea: the notion that the state can play a significant role in its citizens' lives without imperiling their liberties. www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/books/17book.html

2010-02-20T15:25:00.000+01:00

It's beginning to thaw in Hamburg.

New Location

2010-02-20T03:40:00.001+01:00

American View Abroad will continue blogging from the new address americanviewsabroad.blogspot.com. Please join us there!

Snow Falling on Hamburg

2010-02-10T14:32:00.002+01:00

It's been a cold city since a week before Christmas. Lulled by years of uncommonly mild winters, this city has all but forgotten what winter can bring, what it used to be like. Snow started falling in December and at first everyone was enchanted with the idea of having a white Christmas. No one bothered to clean the streets. After all, it's a freak of nature in these times of global warming and it wouldn't last more than a few days. Temperatures continued to drop. News reported very cold weather on the way before New Year and indeed it began to snow, and it got colder and it snowed more. Eventually the ground became so cold, the snow turned to ice, and winter, it seemed, just continued to reinvent itself.

Hardly anyone bothered to clean the streets. Around twenty years ago the laws changed. No side streets were to be cleared of snow, only the main ones. Since the city no longer considered side streets worth the effort, some people living on those streets decided to take the same stance. Why bother shoveling, hacking, throwing down some sand. Even on main streets in front of shops there was far too little effort shown. Small paths were cleared but getting from the car to that path means surviving very thick layers of ice. Hundreds of citizens have been rushed to hospitals with broken limbs. Hundreds more are literally being held hostage, confined to their apartments, fearful of venturing out onto the ice, particularly the elderly. Driving on side streets is next to impossible, biking is not an option and walking is far too risky. Six weeks and counting.

What has the city government done? It finally got around to having a crisis call this past Monday. First, most government agencies here are hardly in any better shape than the rest of the city. Why? A number of years ago, someone, most likely with a MBA, decided Hamburg should sell off lots of its buildings and then rent them back. Most citizens never understood what the city was to gain from this, other than short term profit. What everyone now understands is the new owners of these buildings are not interested in shoveling snow. Certainly not more than a small path. Getting from the subway across large swatches of very thick ice to these buildings is risking serious falls and injuries. Add to this the 'joys' of privatizing winter services instead of using the Sanitation Department. Let's face it: it's much cheaper not to use any one in a union. Pay the private ones six or seven euros an hour and one thought the outcome would be the same. It's not. They often don't bother to show up. Even right in front of City Hall. Subcontracting city services to private firms has proved to be a disaster.

There is, however, one side street fully ice free, compliments of the Sanitation Department. It's the one where the president of the Hamburg Senate lives. It's very cold in Hamburg these days with temperatures dropping even more, on many levels.

According to weather reports this severe cold spell does not disprove global warming. Most of Europe is locked in between a high in Siberia of -35C and a high over Greenland of -20C which is not letting the milder air in.

2010-01-30T16:07:00.002+01:00

The Corruption in Washington is Smothering America's Future by Johann Hari:

.....But corporations are not people. Should they have the right to bear arms, or to vote? It would make as much sense. They are a legal fiction, invented by the state - and they can be fairly regulated to stop them devouring their creator. This is the same Supreme Court that ruled that the detainees at Guantanomo Bay are not 'persons' under the constitution deserving basic protections. A court that says a living breathing human is less of a 'persons' than Lockheed Martin has gone badly awry.

www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/29-1

The 'Devastating' Decision by Ronald Dworkin:

The conservative justices savaged canons of judicial restraint they themselves have long praised. Chief Justice Roberts takes every opportunity to repeat what he said, under oath, in his Senate nomination hearings: that the Supreme Court should avoid declaring any statute unconstitutional unless it cannot decide the case before it in any other way. Now consider how shamelessly he and the other justices who voted in the majority ignored that constraint in their haste to declare the McCain-Feingold Act unconstitutional in time for the coming midterm elections.

http://blogs.nybooks.com/post/354384835/the-devastating-decision

2010-01-17T17:42:00.003+01:00

The tragedy of Haiti leaves one stunned silent. In sixteen seconds a country has imploded. It staggers the imagination. The hurt goes deep.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/haiti-trauma-damage-after-earthquake and
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/haiti-unburied-bodies-earthquake

2009-12-31T16:55:00.002+01:00

A decade of our discontent ends, limping out at midnight. Somewhere among the many articles written about these last ten years, one commented on the end of surprise. Certainly there are no surprises in politics where respect for the ideas of others, the art of compromise and working together are, well, Missing In Action. To be fair it isn't only the politicians who disgust but the finance world, big business, personal greed, and those who stubbornly refuse to get the facts straight, look at the bigger picture and demand higher standards in our dealings with each other.

There are those who try in their own way to change things. There is George in Washington, DC at www.planetrestart.org who has decided to take a good look at climate change and set up A Resource Center for getting solid facts.

There is a translation website at www.rochester.edu/threepercent which was portrayed in the IHT recently. Their aim is to bring non English literature to the US. US readers probably don't realize how much they are missing since literary translations tend to be a one way street much like TV programming or films. It's basically the US to the rest of the world market. Yet one of the most difficult tasks is to sit down and translate someone's literary work: its art, culture and sublime emotional message.

Surely there are many others out there. What this site will try to do in the new decade is find them out and pass it along.

Let's hope the new decade ringing in tonight is a more promising one.

2009-12-04T18:18:00.002+01:00

From someone who knows what he's talking about: Stretching Out an Ugly Struggle by Graham E. Fuller .....

I had hoped that Obama would level with the American people that the war in Afghanistan is not being won, indeed is not winnable within any practicable framework. But such an admission -- however accurate -- would sign the political death warrant of a president to be portrayed as having snatched defeat out of the jaws of 'victory'.

America has inadvertently ended up choosing sides in this war. US forces are perceived by large numbers of Afghans as an occupying army inflicting large civilian casualties. The struggle has now metastasized into Pakistan -- with even higher stakes.

....So the ugly struggle continues with little prospect for genuine improvement. There are no good choices. Obama has only kicked the can down the road.

www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/opinion/04iht-edfuller.html

2009-11-09T18:45:00.004+01:00

There are rare moments in politics so riveting people struggle accepting them, at first. Immediate reactions are disbelief and shock though signs of change were there. However, most don't expect change to happen at a fast pace. The US has been trying for 50 years to get some sort of health care for all its citizens to no avail, until now perhaps. Then there are those scenes that defy the imagination. The fall of the Berlin Wall is one of them. Basically most of Europe was asleep and the news the next morning on the radio was simply not believed. It took a couple of hours to get it to seep in and it took more than words spoken, it took images on TV before one realized it had happened. The Wall was opened ---- by normal everyday people. Opened almost by political exhaustion, it seemed. A movement too great to stop and it wasn't only a German one. The central eastern Europeans paved the way that summer.

They are now taking a well deserved walk down memory lane this week and why not. It's rare to have something good and peaceful to celebrate. It was the end of the Cold War which was painful and dreary and called for sacrifice, but it was certainly better than a devastating military one. A couple of years after the fall, in Cottbus, a town in the eastern part of Germany, and one is sitting around a table discussing what life was like on both sides of the Wall. He had been in the East German army on the border. On the other side was the US military. Strict orders were given never to return any basketballs which landed on the wrong side. The urge was too great. When the officers weren't looking, they made a point of returning them.

2009-11-02T18:10:00.002+01:00

In the op-edit piece Chronicle of a Death We Can't Accept in the NYT on November 1st, Thomas G. Long writes: People who have learned how to care tenderly for the bodies of the dead are almost surely people who also know how to show mercy to the bodies of the living. www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/opinion/01long.html.

Last Friday on the front pages of both the IHT and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung were photos of President Obama saluting the 18 fallen Americans as their bodies were brought back to Delaware in the middle of the night before being taken to their home communities for burial. It was a somber and tender gesture at this moment when he has to decide on what course to take in Afghanistan.

Long further writes in this commentary: funerals often involve processions, sometimes simple, sometimes elaborate, a form of community theater in which we enact publicly the journey from here to there, thereby enabling both the dead and the living to process the reality and the meaning of mortality.

In this case one should add to process the reality and meaning of war. To bring it home, up front and close. War is first and foremost about death and destruction. Recently a very old and most likely one of the last veterans of World War I passed away in Great Britain. He took part in some of its most horrific battles. Yet late in life he spoke out in harsh words wondering what all that destruction and loss of life brought. It was, of course, the next war.

2009-10-07T15:45:00.001+02:00

Entangled Giant by Gary Wills:

Now a new president quickly becomes aware of the vast empire that is largely invisible to the citizenry. The United States maintains an estimated one thousand military bases in other countries. I say 'estimated' because the exact number, location and size of the bases are either partly or entirely cloaked in secrecy......

www.nybooks.com/articles/23110

2009-09-29T14:28:00.002+02:00

The Netherlands overhauled its health care system several years ago and achieved the following goals: near-universal coverage, affordable insurance and quality health care in a program based entirely on private insurance. But there is a big catch: Private insurance in the Netherlands works because it operates more or less like a public utility. Read Jonathan Cole's Going Dutch --- Life after the public option at www.tnr.com/article/health-care/going-dutch.

2009-09-01T10:03:00.007+02:00

The following letter has been sent as part of AVA - Berlin's ongoing activities regarding health care.

Dear President Obama,

We are writing to you from Germany on behalf of American Voices Abroad Berlin, a political group here in Berlin that has supported you from thevery beginning. We have written you occasionally, always with words of encouragement. Today we write to you to support a strong American plan for health care, a robust public option. As citizens of the United States who live in Germany, we have benefited greatly from the German health care system, despite its occasional shortcomings. Based on our experiences with this system – which provides high quality, easily accessible, affordable universal coverage at 10.7% of GNP - we strongly support a similarly dependable system for our fellow citizens in the United States. Please see FAQs about health care coverage in Germany at http://www.avaberlin.org./ or under Important Links on the sidebar of this site.

What we need is an American plan for health care that is strong enough to be an alternative to the private insurance companies, a plan that would control costs and that would be kept when you change jobs. This public option would provide insurance without preconditions, would not be revoked when you get sick, would have no outrageous deductibles and no lifetime caps. Such a robust public American plan would guarantee affordable care for all Americans. Without such a unified plan, Americans will continue to struggle - region by region, or even family by family - to obtain affordable coverage with which they can feel reasonably secure. Without a comprehensive plan, many gains can be rolled back through administrative fiat depending on which party is in the White House. Under co-op or piecemeal legislation, Americans are likely to experience health care reform as destabilizing and to find themselves trying to solve problems individually that really need to be addressed systemically.This is the simple idea behind health care plans in most developed democracies: an umbrella institution that manages coverage for the benefit of patients and their doctors. It might be single-payer, or it might be a hybrid system like in Germany. There are many possible structures, but in any case, it is a dependable public health care system that controls costs and reduces bureaucracy. A great democracy deserves great health care - and creating a strong public American plan for health care is the greatest domestic challenge that you will ever face.

Mr. President, please stay with the public option, and know that when you do, we will be supporting you with our letters,blogs, commentary on news websites, calls to our Representatives andSenators, and conversations with friends and acquaintances.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Prescott and Ann Wertheimer for American Voices Abroad Berlin

2009-08-27T16:55:00.002+02:00

There are many very good reasons to pay tribute to the late Senator Kennedy. The best way would be to sign this Petition to the Senate: 'Ted Kennedy was a courageous champion for health care reform his entire life. In his honor, name the reform bill that passed Kennedy's health committee 'The Kennedy Bill' -- then pass it, and nothing less, through the Senate.'

Kennedy's bill includes a public health insurance option and it would be an honor to Kennedy's memory if it passed the Senate.

www.HonorKennedy.com

Cutting Through The Crap: Head-Scratcher

2009-08-10T19:53:00.001+02:00

An interesting take on what's going on in the US today, in particular in town hall meetings and about trying to get universal health care for all citizens. The writer here asks one very interesting question: In what way is any of it socialism? He adds another important point: destructive manipulation. And then asks if as a society Americans can deal with difficult themes.
Cutting Through The Crap: Head-Scratcher

2009-07-21T16:14:00.002+02:00

Forty years to the day while the men were still on the moon, a single 22 year old New Yorker flew to Europe to escape the madness of the late sixties, to experience something different culturally, to test her ability to land somewhere in a language she barely knew and survive. It wasn't meant to be a life-long experiment. The plan was for a year or two abroad and then back to the hometown for graduate work in education or city planning.

1969 was a strange year. Passivity was in the air in New York. They passed a law there exempting men from the draft if they had a teaching position. Suddenly men with no training in education were seeking teaching jobs (a very female domain in those days). Not that most of these men had ever actively demonstrated against the war. Just the opposite. They were on track to keep their heads down and play their cards right for future jobs. The media portrays the 68 generation as either politically active as in students for McCarthy, or high on Woodstock and the images it brings forth. The truth was that most of that generation was apathetic and non-political, except, of course, for the right wingers on campus. Young Americans for Freedom and some Cuban exiles managed to make life exceedingly difficult for those on the progressive front. One was mistaken back then to think the US was going liberal or left. Just the opposite. It was laying the groundwork and veering very much to the right.

So much has been written about the men on the moon and the billions it cost to get there first. No point rehashing the arguments. It is the memories from that time that causes concern. Somehow citizens were jolted into thinking if we weren't first there, the world as we knew it would end. It was in the seventh grade at a Brooklyn Catholic school at the end of the fifties when suddenly the day no longer started with religion. Prayers were quickly said and then it was math, math and more math. Overnight the agenda was radically changed by the nuns. Math all morning; grammar all afternoon. We were in training for the moon landing. Public High School brought no relief. If you were in the so-called honors program, you got little to no physical ed, music or art, but a long day, at times minus lunch hour, in the core courses of math, sciences, language, literature and grammar. College was actually a let-down.

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill is the novel made for a week like this one. It's post 9/11 New York with grand intimate descriptions of the outer boroughs which are so often ignored in fiction and a cast of characters coming from the outside, looking inward. One thing, though, shows how little has changed. The main character, Hans, is politically very passive when it comes to our present wars. His attitude is more like a waiting game. Just waiting for the outcome.

Hans in Netherland: 'We didn't really talk about politics,' I say. ....The decisive item, if I'm going to be honest about this, was that Chuck was making a go of things. The sushi, the mistress, the marriage, the real estate dealing, and, almost inconceivably, Bald Eagle Field: it was all happening in front of my eyes. While the country floundered in Iraq, Chuck was running. That was political enough for me, a man having trouble putting one foot in front of the other.'

2009-07-03T08:54:00.004+02:00

Below is a letter concerning health care that AVA Berlin is sending to selected members of the U.S. Congress who are engaged in the health care debate. But because letters from constituents seem to matter more to Congress than letters from those who do not vote in a given state or district, and because some in Congress only accept mail from their own constituents, we urge each of you to send this letter along PERSONALLY to your representative and senators.

You can use the following URLs to find the appropriate addresses:http://www.senate.gov/Use the pull-down menu in the top right hand corner to select your state (the state to which you send your absentee vote) and go from there.http://www.house.gov/Welcome.shtmlClick on Find Your Representative (by zip code) or Write Your Representative in the top left hand corner.Feel free as well to send the letter to friends or other parties involved in the discussion of health care reform.Don't forget to personalize the greeting, and remember to copy the interesting notes when you forward!

Hoping for wide distribution,
Carolyn Prescott and Ann Wertheimer

To our Senators and Representatives:

As a non-partisan group of Americans living abroad who remain engaged and active as U.S. citizens, we of American Voices Abroad Berlin* are following the debate about health care in the States with particular interest. We hope that Congress will examine various foreign plans - Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, Canada - in order to eliminate some of their weaknesses and focus on their strengths. Having experienced the health care system here in Germany, we feel we can contribute to the discussion by sharing some information about a system that achieves near universal coverage and high-quality health care at a significantly lower cost than the American system.**

The German system*** has the following features: 1) Health care coverage is mandatory. About 88% of the population is covered by one of over 200 nonprofit public insurance funds, but some people do purchase private insurance based on their circumstances or because of the extended coverage (such as private hospital rooms) offered by some private insurance companies. 2) Premiums for the public option are levied based on income, or, in the case of children and the unemployed, are covered by government funds. 3) A government health fund manages the distribution of collected premiums to the public option insurers based on assessment of actuarial risks of the individuals covered. 4) No one in the public system can be excluded or charged excessively based on pre-existing conditions or their current state of health. Private insurance companies are also subject to certain requirements related to coverage of persons with ill health. 5) Insurance is largely portable and considered by most to be affordable. In addition, as patients/consumers, we note the following: 6) We choose our own doctors. 7) We do not have long waiting times for consultations, diagnostic procedures, or surgeries and treatments. 8) We seem to have access to the same advanced medical technologies and medications that are available in the U.S. 9) We have very limited co-payments; we do pay a fee of 10 euros for each first doctor and dentist visit per quarter as well as 5 to 10 euros per pack of medications and 10 euros per inpatient day up to 28 days.The German system is not perfect and continues to undergo changes in order to cover and contain costs. However, the underlying principle of the German system, that health care should be financed by individuals on the basis of their ability to pay but should be available to all who need it on roughly equal terms, has been maintained. There is a sense here that it is in everyone's practical and humanitarian interests to promote health and to care for the sick and injured in the society as a whole. We would encourage Americans to consider features of the German system on their merits rather than dismissing them with scare words like 'socialist' or presenting them as too clumsily or expensively bureaucratic, as we know first-hand that they generally are not.We strongly urge lawmakers to bring American health care up to the standard enjoyed by others in the developed world.

Sincerely,Carolyn Prescott (CarolynPrescott@web.de) for American Voices Abroad Berlin

* American Voices Abroad Berlin (AVA Berlin) is politically progressive and independent of all political parties. AVA Berlin is opposed to preventive war and the Patriot Act. It is dedicated to fair elections, civil liberties and social and economic justice at home as well as to a foreign policy rooted in respect for international institutions and the rule of law.

** Comparing Costs: A Patient's StoryOn March 17, 2008, while visiting friends in Berlin, Germany, Karen Hillmer fell down a steep flight of stairs at a subway station and broke many bones. Karen required five operations in a span of a few weeks, each operation involving surgeons from different specialties within orthopedic surgery. Karen spent a total of six weeks in the hospital. During that time, in addition to the surgery and round the clock skilled nursing care, she received physical therapy every day. On April 25, 2008, Karen was moved to a clinic in Berlin specializing in rehab medicine for geriatric patients. During the five weeks in this clinic, Karen received skilled nursing care, extensive physical therapy and occupational therapy each day. On May 29, 2008, Karen was able to fly back to the U.S.The total bill from the hospital for all the care she received during her six-week stay was just over $28,000. The bill from the rehab clinic was about $11,000. (The dollar amounts given here are based on an exchange rate of about $1.60 for 1 euro, the worst exchange rate ever for the dollar.) Thus, the final bill totaled $39,000.Karen required two follow-up operations after returning to the U.S. The most recent one was performed on her left elbow. It was done as an outpatient procedure with several x-rays and radiological therapy before the operation and extensive occupational therapy for about 18 days after the operation. The combined costs of this care, which took place over a period of about 3 weeks and did not include any inpatient care, was $19,600. The operation only involved one surgeon working on one specific problem while each operation in Germany required several surgeons working together on different problems at the same time. To summarize, 11 weeks of in-patient care and 5 complicated orthopedic operations in Germany came to $39,000, while 3 weeks of out-patient care and one orthopedic operation in the U.S. came to $19,600.

*** Two Sources of Information on the German System: Reinhard Busse, M.D. M.P.H., Professor of Health Care Management, Berlin University of Technology and Charité—University Medicine Berlin http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Resources/2008/Health%20Care%20System%20Profiles/Germany_Country_Profile_2008_2%20pdf.pdf <http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Resources/2008/Health%20Care%20System%20Profiles/Germany_Country_Profile_2008_2%20pdf.pdf> Uwe E. Reinhardt, James Madison Professor of Political Economy, Princeton University, “Health Reform Without a Public Plan: The German Model,” /Today’s Economist/, April 17, 2009.http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/health-reform-without-a-public-plan-the-german-model/

2009-07-01T10:52:00.001+02:00

Amen! www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/07/01/enough_already_on_michael_jackson

2009-06-18T14:22:00.003+02:00

One of the most realistic comments on rationing health care appeared in today's IHT. New York Times business columnist David Leonhardt takes on the R word:

'Today, I want to try to explain why the case against rationing is not really a substantive argument. It is a clever set of buzzwords that tries to hide the fact that societies must make choices. In truth, rationing is an inescapable part of economic life. It is a process of allocating scarce resources. Even the United States, the richest society in human history, is constantly rationing. It rations spots in good public schools. It rations lakefront homes. It rations the best cuts of steaks and wild-caught salmon. .....Milton Friedman's beloved line is a good way to frame the issue: there is no such thing as a free lunch. The choice is not between rationing and not rationing. It is between rationing well and rationing badly. Given that the United States devotes far more of its economy to health care than other rich countries and gets worse results by many measures, it is hard to argue that is is now rationing very rationally.'
www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/business/economy/17leonhardt.html

This struck a cord this morning because in yesterday's LA Times there were a series of articles on how health insurers refuse to limit rescission of coverage. Rescission, of course, is a nasty move to drop customers and cancel medical coverage for some sick policy holders even though they have been paying into their policies for years:

'It also found that policy holders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.'
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rescind17-2009jun17,0,5870586.story

Is it any wonder that whenever anyone asks if a return to the home country is planned now that the time has come to consider selling our home, the only honest answer is no because of lack of good quality health insurance? With all the illnesses the two of us have been up against these last few years (Parkinson, strokes, heart attack, a major OP correcting a scoliosis, a new hip), one thing we do not have to worry about is paying medical bills, getting good quality care, not having to worry about being thrown to the wolves financially because of medical expenses for care or medicine.

There has been a lot of discussion in Germany about how quality and care for non-private patients has fallen a notch or two recently. Yet this has not been our experience. Whether as a private patient in the hospital (where an extra insurance pays the difference) or as a non-private patient outside, the quality has been excellent, the wait for appointments rather short, all tests have been done that were needed. Of course, it does depend on whether one has a serious illness or is just trying to calm one's nerves if something might be wrong. There have been attempts to put off CAT scans for weeks, but a simple explanation of what's behind it all has always led to an immediate appointment.

Society has to make choices. One extremely important one is to see that every citizen and resident has health insurance, in particular for serious illnesses. It is hard enough dealing with a range of health problems, but having to be brought to financial ruin because of medical expenses seems uncivilized. Nor is there anything wrong with allowing the government to provide a health insurance plan along side of private ones. The main thing is a peace of mind knowing that coverage is there and it works when everything else in life seems to be falling apart.

2009-06-05T10:17:00.003+02:00

The word of the day is stereotype. President Obama: I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of Americans. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.

Der Spiegel is doing a three part essay on Trans-Atlantic Comparisons: Sophisticated Europeans, Obese Americans? at www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,628381,00.html. Interesting to look at its photos and charts comparing poverty and wealth between the US and various western European countries. It leaves little place for normal stereotype thoughts.

2009-05-22T17:35:00.002+02:00

How often does one open up the business pages of the IHT these days and come upon a heart-warming report along these lines: Let them eat brioche! Town saves bakery by Sarah Schweitzer. Not just any bakery, but a real French one and the town is a small rural one in New Hampshire that is being hit hard by lay-offs and businesses closing. Citizens of an American town rising up and fighting to keep something that at first seemed so alien, but in the end proved a smashing success and something they simply didn't want to live without, even in hard times. Alas, a story worth smiling about.

www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2009/05/21/town_rises_up_for_bakery

2009-05-12T18:00:00.003+02:00

There was a full page of articles on why fewer foreigners in Germany are striving to obtain German citizenship in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The primary reason given is that Germany demands its new citizens to renounce their first citizenship when becoming German. Worth noting is that any new citizen who is from one of the European Union countries does not have to comply with this rule and is allowed to keep both passports. According to all reports there has never been any problem with those who do indeed have double citizenship. So why the double standard? Of course the only example constantly mentioned in the media is the case of Turkish citizens who often don't want to give up their Turkish passport because they might have difficulty inheriting property later on. What is almost never mentioned are all those citizens from, say, English speaking countries who refuse to renounce one citizenship for another. It is a drastic step, forcing one to officially cut a tie to one's birth nation, and for non-political reasons. What does one get in return, except for the right to vote in local and national elections? If you are a permanent resident you have to pay taxes here, have health insurance, pay into the social security system and follow all the laws of the land, which we all do. In my case I exchange voting in US federal elections instead of in German national ones. I am forced to give up my rights to vote in local elections both in New York City and here. There is no good reason for me after over 30 years to have any voice in local NY affairs, though I follow what happens there closely. After all, it's my hometown. I do follow closely what happens here, but from a unique distance. I'm part of it, but then I'm not.

Ultimately it comes down to the rather emotional factor of when returning home do I want to line up in the foreigner's line and present a German passport which lists my birth city as New York or do I want to pass through my birth country as one of its own? What harm would it do Germany to have citizens like me who have feelings for both countries? It is interesting to note that never once has any German official ever approached me about obtaining citizenship. On the other hand, since 9/11 the rules have changed here. Should I decide to leave Germany for a period over three months without informing the authorities, I would lose all my rights to permanent residency and would have to start the process all over again. Never mind that I am married to a German citizen and my children were born here. Did I mention that these children have double citizenship from birth on? They were lucky enough to have a German father and an American mother. For those children now born in Germany with non-German parents who have lived here for a number of years, the laws are different. These children are allowed to have both citizenships until age 23 when Germany demands they decide which one to hold onto and which one to abandon. It is going to be interesting to see what happens when this generation comes of age. What are the Germans going to do with those who have served in the German military, perhaps even abroad in these days, and then decide not to hold onto their German passport? Will they really count them as foreigners suddenly? Tell them that though they were born here, attended school here and speak the language, they are no longer a citizen simply because they have decided for another passport? Of course, most of them most likely won't opt for the other passport. It just seems harsh and petty to force them to have to make a decision that is a private, emotional one.

2009-04-27T12:06:00.002+02:00

It's time to break out of the cocoon being ill creates and re-enter the political arena. One gets so involved with oneself when illness strikes and depleted energy leaves you unable to see the bigger picture. It is too easy to think at such moments politics doesn't matter, but politics is involved in all facets of life whether it's health care, jobs, war, torture, even mundane things like where to park your car, or as in the case in Berlin yesterday where they voted about whether religion should be taught equally next to ethics in the school plan. The majority voted no to organized religion and opted for having all students, independent of their religious background, being taught values in a secular way. Those students who want lessons in their religion can, of course, do so outside the mainstream plan.

On the other side of the pond there are two enormous themes burning brightly. What to do with torture, in particular to those who willingly agreed to it use and why. Should they be held accountable? Perhaps the better question should be: how could they not be held accountable? Frank Rich in The Banality of Bush White House Evil sums it up in perspective at www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/26-0.

'President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won't vanish into a memory hole..... Congress and politicians of both political parties should get out of the way. We don't need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation's commitment to the rule of law.'

The other theme is the economic crisis and how it is affecting the common person, the forgotten one in the huge sums of money being thrown around daily in the media. Tomgram: Nick Turse, Hungry and Without Options in New York at www.tomdispatch.com/post/175064.

'Here, on a quiet, tree-lined section of 116th Street in Manhattan, it's possible to see the financial crisis that has the planet in its grip up close and personal. The new working poor, as well as more families with young children, are threatening to overwhelm New York City's last hunger safety net.'

2009-04-10T11:53:00.004+02:00

After a ten hour operation to correct a severe scoliosis of the spine on March 2nd, the last weeks have been spent recuperating, slowly getting on one's feet again, learning to walk with a walker and on crutches, battling stairs, regaining strength, and dealing with being out of action. The doctors did a magnificent job putting two rods down my spine and straightening it up from a dismal 54% off-kilter to 32% placing nine screws on the left side and five on the right. A CD with pre-and post operative x-rays are revealing in how great the damage was and what modern medicine at its best can do today. Imagine having this in former times. Imagine not being able to walk more than ten minutes without doubling over in pain.

Of course, one is in another world after going through something like this. A monster operation, as one of my doctors so lovingly put it. One might expect to recuperate reading many novels and resting comfortably. Reality is something else. The surprising part was experiencing almost no pain, though lying on a scar 25 cm long. Pain management when done professionally is excellent today in this respect. From the time my eyes opened the day following surgery, three pain specialists were at my side asking: on a scale of 1 - 10 where do you place your pain? It never went above 3 which was very good news. They were kind, friendly people, as were all the nurses and doctors. Under no condition did I ever feel like a number, but as a patient in the center of it all. However, there was no energy left to read or follow current events. The time was spent, instead, starring out of the window and in this new hospital from my room that meant looking into the rooms of other patients. It was a bit like Jimmy Steward in that one film where he has a broken leg in a New York apartment and spends his days watching the neighbors. Only I didn't follow a murder as in the film, but other patients, some rather critically ill, who were being taken care of devotedly. There was a male patient who couldn't move and it was touching watching a male nurse wash him down, dress him, change his bed, feed him. It was a bit difficult picking up a newspaper to read about Ponzi schemes or the economic crisis while experiencing being taken care of by health workers whose salaries don't cover the personal effort they put into their work.

It is going to take, most likely, till the beginning of June to be able to walk on my own again. It's an up and down process, but each small step is one in the right direction. The good news here is that our health insurance covers all expenses. Yes, one can have universal health care and get excellent care in a very modern hospital without having to worry about a financial burden being brought on by illness. The rest is up to the patient. It's a game how far to go every day. No lifting anything over 10 pounds, no bending down, no falling, moving around a bit, but not too much, doing exercises to strengthen certain muscles. There's a waiting period of a couple of months or more for those rods and screws to mesh into the rest of my back and spine.

It takes a lot to get to the point of accepting having such surgery done, of putting yourself in the hands of others, of having to go through months to get back on your feet. It's a journey that tells you a lot about yourself.

2009-02-28T18:29:00.003+01:00

Taking time off for complex spine surgery on Monday in Hamburg's largest and newest hospital in Eppendorf means little to no posting in the coming month. One aspect of being confined to the house for months on end, unable to simply go out for a walk or anywhere on your own is how much your personality changes. You get to notice a side to yourself that isn't necessarily a nice one. You become angry and bored. You find there is so much time on your hands but little energy to be creative. All those books lined up to be read? It's difficult getting involved in then plight of others. Politics since the election has taken a back seat. You have to give Obama time to find his voice as President, though he seems to be getting it right this past week.

One good thing about living in these times is the internet, a lifeline to the world outside when one is coped in. Another thing you find yourself doing is taking walks down memory lane. And then comes the magical moment when the two meet. Roaming through various Brooklyn (my hometown) blogs, the Kingston Lounge appeared and there, as if out of nowhere, was The Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital Complex, its history and stunning photos of a hospital, the hospital I was born in many years ago and one I long thought had found its end with the wrecking ball. No, instead here one can find photos of a hospital with an even older tradition than the one I'm entering tomorrow. Long before the Civil War till 1948 it served long and well. And it's still there. And it's beautiful.

Thank you Kingston Lounge for making my day this week.

www.kingstonlounge.blogspot.com

2009-02-23T16:15:00.004+01:00

Grim reading. Nick Turse: Closing Down Main Street at
www.tomdispatch.com/post/175037/nick_turse .

2009-02-16T15:20:00.002+01:00

Germany is basically a country of renters rathen than house owners. Hamburg, for example, has an array of not-for-profit building associations and people who sign up can, after a waiting period, find a good, decent apartment rather inexpensively, certainly compared to many parts of the US. This is particularly interesting for young people looking to get out on their own and the elderly. People here have never be hounded by the idea that buying a house should be a top priority. Thus it was very interesting to read an interview with urban theorist Richard Florida in The Atlantic.

In The Great Reset he states: And I think we're going to have to figure out ways not to reflate housing prices but to make housing much more affordable. It seems to me that maybe people should be spending no more than 20 percent of their income on housing and related durable goods. How are we going to grow if people are forced to spend the largest share of their income on this product that isn't really contributing to economic growth? And how we shift to much more rental housing could be part of that conversation.

www.theatlantic.com/doc/200902u/richard-florida-interview

2009-02-08T11:01:00.002+01:00

Numerous theologians and Christians in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are asking all concerned persons to sign a petition calling for the full recognition of the decrees of the Second Vatican Council. They are responding to the extremely problematic annulment of the excommunication of bishops belonging to the traditional priestly society of Pius X.

After completion the petition will be handed over to the Vatican, the German Bishops' Conference, the official Catholic lay organization and the press.

Information in German, English and French at www.petition-vaticanum2.org/index.html

2009-02-02T16:13:00.002+01:00

Four US citizens in Berlin who voted for President Obama were invited to read for volklesen.tv (people read tv) during the week of his inauguration. They are members of Democrats Abroad Germany, Berlin Chapter and American Voices Abroad, Berlin. Though the introduction is in German, three of the readings are in English. Ann Wertheimer, Chairperson for American Voices Abroad, Berlin read her favorite children's book, Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans.

www.volkslesen.tv/Wochen/Dems.html

2009-01-22T10:21:00.001+01:00

Tuesday January 20th was a magical day and not only in the United States, but the world over. Peoples around the globe sat glued to their TVs or computers watching our first African-American President take office. Among the 400 guests at an inaugural ball in Munich was one very special guest of honor, Gloria Roberts, the great, great granddaughter of our third President, Thomas Jefferson. Yes, our national heroes were slave holders and very often took one as their mistress or lover and fathered children and family with them. History has only begun to recognize this side of these heroes in very recent times. Roberts is a long time resident of Munich, but she has more in her family background then this one great, great grandfather. Her father was the first black member of the California Assembly, elected in 1918! Her biggest wish is for President Obama to bring us together.

Gloria Roberts is also seen with US composer Gloria Coates and Marina Mecl who has devoted many years working for voting rights for overseas Americans.

2009-01-20T16:55:00.002+01:00

What else can be said or written today? Perhaps the best thing next to watching this historical inauguation and celebrating it is to go back to one of President Obama's roots, Chicago, and see how they of the Chicago Reader have been reporting on him over the years.

The Obama Reader -- We Knew Him When: An Inaugural Special
www.chicagoreader.com/obama_reader

2009-01-15T11:56:00.003+01:00

Glen Greenwald takes on Thomas Friedman of the NYT in A Perfect Definition of 'Terrorism' at www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/14-14.

2009-01-14T17:34:00.002+01:00

Some books have to be read at just the right time. James Carroll's The City Below which was published in 1994 and purchased on Cape Cod in the late 90s has been sitting on a bookshelf unread all these years. Though Carroll is an admired author, in particular An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War Between Us as well as his columns in the Boston Globe on Mondays, this novel about Boston, two brothers, and four time spans in recent political history fell flat on the first page, until now. In these weeks before the new president takes over, it vividly brings into focus the 1960 campaign of JFK, and the horrible racist fury that took over Boston in the 70s, not to mention the very long political career of Senator Ted Kennedy. It's an odd combination of taking a good look at how we once were and where we are today. At this moment it's probably the only thing we can do. Take a long look at our past and then figure out how to account for it all.

2009-01-07T19:19:00.001+01:00

Having arrived in Germany on my own many, many years ago and hardly speaking a word of the language, I had the very good fortune of finding a friend, Christl, a woman a generation older than I. She more or less took me by the hand and introduced me to the ways of the small town in Germany we found ourselves in, and in Europe in our travels together back then during the heart of the Cold War to East Berlin, Moscow, Prague, Vienna. Christl has always had a keen curiosity of the world at large and so it was no surprise when she decided, on her own, to pack up and go to Pakistan last November for a couple of weeks. We have heard a lot about Pakistan in the media these last years, but how many of us would venture out to see it first hand and in these times?
Christl, a German, has written up two revealing first hand reports about her trip in English with stunning photos. Read Autumn in Pakistan: A Look Through the Keyhole 1 at www.globosapiens.net/travel-information/Beltit+Fort-2920.html and 2 at www.globosapiens.net/travel-information/Rakaposhi+Peak-2921.html.
These reports present us with a startling new look at a country we know far too little about. Certainly, as she herself points out, a far cry from what the media feeds us on a daily basis.

2009-01-01T14:34:00.010+01:00

One very good reason for celebrating the New Year at home is the traditional concerts performed live on TV by two of the world's best orchestras within a day of each other. New Year's Eve began with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. This year's concert had the added bonus of Thomas Quasthoff whose great voice sang old American folk songs by Aaron Copland, including I Bought Me a Cat, a children's song which was a sheer delight to listen to. Quasthoff's rendering of Old Man River at the end was breathtaking.

New Year's Day begins with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, this year under Daniel Barenboim in one of the most beautiful concert halls. It was duly noted this time there were two women in the orchestra, long a domain of men only. Barenboim said what so many are hoping for --- that this New Year will be a peaceful one and that human justice prevails in the Middle East. Amen.

2008-12-26T16:28:00.002+01:00

Talk about outspoken words and guts. The great Eartha Kitt passed away this Christmas. She was invited to the White House in 1968 and asked by Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War. Her reply: You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot.

It's worth mentioning that bookings dried up and she was exiled in Europe for almost a decade until President Jimmy Carter invited her back to the White House in 1978.

Obit in the New York Times.

2008-12-25T12:24:00.002+01:00

It seems a more solemn Christmas this year. The messages arriving by email or by hand are not so joyous in a mindless way. Friends and family are tense wondering what the New Year will bring. It is almost as if a veil has been lifted and suddenly there's lots more thought about social injustice, poverty, war and peace. There is an invisible line drawing nearer everyone between being on a safe side and falling off.

It's grey in Hamburg today. Our neighborhood Catholic Church was broken into last Sunday and destroyed by fire so no Mass, Vespers or other services can be celebrated there this Christmas. It was the third attack on a church here since November and the worst. They piled Bibles and hymn books onto the altar and set fire to it. The kindergarten was also completely destroyed. They left no message as to why. What to do at the last minute? How to organize services on the few days when people of faith or not are drawn to ceremony and rituals Catholics prize? The mall, of all places, has come to the rescue. A commercial temple of material Christmas madness has kindly opened its doors to allow Christmas Eve services to continue. It was an interesting way of reaching out to others, to those who normally have little contact to each other. A high school also offered its hall, but public transportation is more reliable to the mall. And so a unique Midnight Mass at the Mall.

An unusual Christmas to say the least.

2008-12-15T15:54:00.001+01:00

Amy Goodman broadcasted her Democracy Now program live from Berlin last Friday.

Here links to her three main themes:

"EXCLUSIVE---AWOL US Soldier Seeks Asylum in Germany Over Returning to "Illegal" War in Iraq"
Interview with André Shepherd
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/12/exclusiveawol_us_soldier_seeks_asylum_in

"US Use of Bases in Germany for Iraq War Goes Against German Constitution that Forbids Launching Wars from German Soil, Says Activist"
Interview with Elsa Rassbach
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/12/us_use_of_bases_in_germany

"Senate Report Finds Rumsfeld Directly Responsible for US Torture of Prisoners"
Interview with attorney Wolfgang Kaleck

2008-12-05T15:43:00.002+01:00

Sixty years ago this month, without a single dissenting voice, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt was instrumental in ensuring its passage. Here are her words:

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home --- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet, they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

2008-11-27T16:46:00.002+01:00

Sage Stossel's Thanksgiving ----- eight cartoons about 'in these turbulent times, the old order, it seems, is crumbling ---- with bedrock facts of life giving way to new realities.........at

www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/cartoons/11_26_08_stossel

2008-11-20T15:26:00.002+01:00

From a friend, who lives mainly in Munich but is often back home in California, this note:

At the local Barnes and Noble Starbucks here in Torrance, I overheard two 80+ year old ladies talking about Barack Obama and his politics and how comforted they felt for our country when they saw him on TV with his broad, capturing smile and flash of white teeth. It touched me to hear these two snow-white haired ladies with different skin colors ---- one pale white and the other dark black ---- two good friends sharing their happiness about the outcome of the presidential election. How far we have come in the span of our life-time. It is truly hard to hold back the tears.

2008-11-19T16:26:00.002+01:00

The election has taken its toll in a surprising way. People here are still commenting on it, but in almost hushed tones. They admit to getting up early on election morning to see who won. There are even more comments on the Electoral College than eight years ago. That's an awfully strange way of electing a President is frequently heard. Interesting how long it has taken before people outside the US have finally understood it. Who devised this system? Explain it was around 1776. Bewilderment at the fact nothing has changed since then. Why not? OK there are big states and smaller states, in population if not in size, and how it would be next to impossible to change the status quo.

Two other comments follow immediately: fear and hope that nothing happens to Obama and distress on Palin having been nominated for Vice President. There is real concern for the President-elect's safety here. And utter astonishment at someone so unqualified not only being nominated but at how the system could be hijacked by its own process.

Yes We Can has become part of the language. A local newspaper has adopted it into a series on how citizens have changed their lives with this positive, uplifting phrase. It has even been changed around now that the Green Party has elected a Turkish-German citizen to lead it. Yes we Chem -- a play on this leader's first name.

It is an interesting time to ponder the differences in the systems on both sides of the Atlantic. Obama managed to start off his race on his own as an outsider and through enormous discipline, organization and brilliance win against so many odds. Anything like this is unthinkable over here where strict party rules would prohibit such a newcomer to rise so fast. On the other hand, there are far more political parties to choose from here and in the last twenty years two new parties are now in Parliament with voices in federal and state elections, the Green and the Left Party.

Among all the enormous problems facing the new administration, one of the most symbolic is Closing Guantanamo. How and When by Elisa Massimino at www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/18/opinion/edmassimino.php:

Closing Guantanamo will require more than the stroke of a pen. It will take comprehensive policy changes and a major investment of domestic and international political capital. But it can be done, and it can be done in the new administration's first year. .....For nearly seven years, Guantanamo has been a trap, not just for the prisoners held there but for American moral authority and global leadership. We have had the keys to unlock it all along. It is up to President-elect Obama to use them.

2008-11-05T17:47:00.002+01:00

An email to friends at 8:30 am today: Since 3 am we have sat stunned in front of the TV watching the returns on CNN. I feel like a flat tire ---- all the air is out. It was beautiful watching Ohio, PA, and Florida turn blue. It was so emotional seeing the Obama and Biden families together on stage in Chicago. We just went into the NY Times web and switched on the maps of all the elections since 1992. It's amazing how the country has changed colors. Jon called from Philadelphia at 5:30 to let us know everyone was out on the streets celebrating. Perhaps because we watched the result in the dead of night, we had the feeling of the world being turned upside down. The beginning of the end of an eight year nightmare.

A reply from a close friend in West Chester, PA this afternoon: It was awesome to say the least, watching the states flip. I had tears in my eyes watching Obama's speech in Grant Park, it was so amazing and moving. Obama and Biden have their work cut out for them and I do not envy them their job but I really do believe they are up to it with bi-partisan cooperation from Congress. I am finishing my pot of coffee, cause your right, the wind is gone out of my sails and they are flat from the shear exhaustion of it all (not to mention the Phillies last week winning the World Series in baseball! What a ride.) Chester County went for Barack in a big way --- a first! I am proud of my county and state this year. The turnout at the polls was amazing. We have 1450 voters in our precinct, I was #944 at 4:15, they had 100 absentee ballots and only 400 left to vote with four more hours to go. When I left, they were still streaming in at a steady pace. Obama got a mandate, so much more than Bush's supposed mandate 8 and 4 years ago.

In fact almost 85% of the 1479 registered voters in Chester County precinct cast a ballot according to an official email sent out later. Obama defeated McCain 633 to 600, even though Republicans outnumber Dems by almost 2 to 1. In the county Obama won 9 points. By comparison in 2004 Kerry lost by four points and in 2000 Gore lost by 10 points.

2008-11-04T16:58:00.004+01:00

Just received from a friend in Dayton, Ohio on this election day:

Well, I done it. I voted already; just walked in, signed up immediately (but DID have to show my driver's license to some old right winger, the cad) and waited for two people ahead of me to get to their voting machine before finally getting to mine.

It was a joy to punch in for Obama. It was a thrill not to punch in for McCain...

Today Rove (who was thoroughly wrong in all respects in 2006 and carries his record in with him into 2008) said that he expected Obama to win in a landslide, taking all the "toss-up"
states. That was probably a deliberate move on his part to spook right wingers into voting instead of thinking they didn't have to worry in those "toss-up" states. (Do you toss up in a "toss-up" state when you lose? I do anyway...)

Here's hoping!

It'll be a long night way into tomorrow morning for those of us abroad. As he said in Ohio, so it is in Hamburg and around the world: Here's hoping!

PS: My son just voted in Philadelphia and reported no lines and was in and out in 10 minutes.

2008-10-29T11:50:00.002+01:00

Less than a week to go before the election and tension and anxiety at the outcome is high. Yet in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in one of the most contested parts of a swing state, the mood, according to a home town man who fled at age 17 and returned recently for a weekend to see what has and has not changed, is rather sullen. He had difficulty finding more than one angry white man. People are far more worried about health care and the economy. His report: Meeting Myself in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the Political (and Personal) Crucible by Robert S. Eshelman at

www.tomdispatch.com/post/174995/robert_eshelman_republican_nosedive_in_pennsylvania

2008-10-15T10:47:00.002+02:00

Our webmaster, Fred Roberts, who has been MIA (Missing in Action) on this blog as a writer for some time now has won the Loebner Prize for his Elbot. So what or who is Elbot? Find out at its/his/her website at www.elbot.com. According to Silicon Valley news yesterday Elbot 'its shtick --- trying to sound like a puckish human attempting to sound like a computer --- successfully fooled three of the twelve judges. '

Congratulations Fred and now we know what you have been doing with your time and talent!

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2008/10/chatbots-fool-some-of-the-people-some-of-the-time.html

2008-10-07T13:36:00.002+02:00

James Carroll in Making Some Sense of $700 Billion:

Step back. All of last week's handwringing hoopla over the emergency bailout stands in stark contrast to utter indifference with which politicians approved an equivalent layout for the military --- an approval so routine that it was ignored in the press and by the public.

.....Here is a question that no one is asking about America's grave financial crisis: By fueling corporate profits, jobs, and private-sector growth for two generations with massive over-investment in the military, has the United States gutted the real worth of its economy? One needn't be an economist to know that spending money on war planes, missiles and exotic weapons systems, not to mention combat operations, creates far less social capital than spending on education, bridges, mass transit, new forms of energy --- even the arts. www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/06-5

The New Yorker's Choice for President:

At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned in the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader's name is Barack Obama.

www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/10/13/081013taco_talk_editors

2008-10-01T18:32:00.003+02:00

Via Sudeutsche Zeitung under the headline Imperailer Blues is this commentary by John Gray, a professor at the London School of Economics, which appeared in The Guardian on Sunday:

....Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War is over.

....Despite incessantly urging other countries to adopt its way of doing business, America has always had one economic policy for itself and another for the rest of the world.

....Outside the U.S. most people have long accepted that the development of new economies that goes with globalization will undermine America's central position in the world. They imagined that there would be a change in America's comparative standing, taking place incrementally over several decades or generations. Today, this looks an increasingly unrealistic assumption.

Having created the conditions that produced history's biggest bubble, America's political leaders appear unable to grasp the magnitude of the dangers the country now faces. Mired in their rancorous culture wars and squabbling among themselves, they seem oblivious to the fact that American global leadership is fast ebbing away. A new world is coming into being almost unnoticed, where America is only one of several great powers, facing an uncertain future it can no longer shape.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/28/usforeignpolicy.useconomicgrowth

2008-09-18T18:43:00.002+02:00

The headlines today: Abroad, Bailout Is Seen as a Free Market Detour ; Supreme Court's Global Influence is Waning; and there's Timothy Egan's Moo at http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/moo/index.html:

....Crony capitalism is how things are done in Alaska. They reward failure in the Last Frontier state. In that sense, it's not unlike Wall Street's treatment of CEOs who run companies into the ground.....

Lest we forget the rest of the world: this morning's IHT had a front page article on 9 Million Afghans Facing Acute Food Shortage Soon which is sadly no longer on its website at www.iht.com.

The following might be useful as 'ears and eyes' for what is going on politically in the campaign in the US. At the very least these articles help sift through the spin and bring a bit of clarity:

www.anonymousliberal.com has interesting detailed reports and comments and has brought attention to www.politicshome.com which provides up to the minute coverage on the campaign.

Obama: The Price of Being Black by Andrew Hacker at www.nybooks.com/articles/21771:

Barack Obama can only become president by mustering a turnout that will surpass the votes he is not going to get. ..... What seems more needed , in my view, are two parallel campaigns: a quiet one to assure a maximum black turnout, and a more public one to make the most of the white backing the Obama-Biden ticket already has. His rallies, appearances, and advertisements would benefit from featuring white faces, and they should be accompanied by endorsements from white military veterans, union leaders, police chiefs, and firemen. His black supporters will know what is going on, and not take this as a rebuff.

Sad and troubling, but probably true.

2008-09-06T11:12:00.002+02:00

As one friend wrote from the US, this had to be one of the weirdest weeks on record as far as politics is concerned. Stomach turning and nauseating are two words repeated over and over again.

Does anyone remember a scene that occurred in St Patrick's Cathedral when Robert Kennedy was lying in state in June 1968? The TV lights were constantly on as thousands of citizens came to pay their respect. At the end of the day his widow came to his casket and knelt there. One by one the TV lights were turned off to leave her alone in her prayers and thoughts. It was a stunning, moving tribute to common decency. These days as Judith Warner points out in her blog and as we have seen on front pages of newspapers around the world infants and children are used mercilessly in pursuit of personal ambition and fame.

Warner in The Mirrored Ceiling: Why does this woman (Palin) --- who to some of us seems as fake as they can come, with her delicate infant son hauled out night after night under the klieg lights and her pregnant teenage daughter shamelessly instrumentalized for political purposes --- deserve, to a unique extent among political women, to rank as so 'real'? Because Republicans, very clearly, believe that real people are idiots. This disdain for their smarts shows up in the whole way they've cast this race now, turning a contest over economic and foreign policy into a culture war of the Real vs the Elite.

.....One of the worst poisons of the American political climate right now, the thing that time and again in recent years has led us to disaster, is the need people feel for leaders they can 'relate' to. This need isn't limited to women; it brought us after all, two terms of George W. Bush.

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/the-mirrored-ceiling/index.html

2008-09-01T20:34:00.002+02:00

There is no way to comment on McCain's pick for vice president from here. However, it might be interesting to see how one US conservative from New York City and one who claims to have lived and worked in Alaska sees it:

http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com

President Palin?

What about personal -- professional background? Some perspectives: I've both lived and worked in Alaska and have been to Wasilla. .....Wasilla is a nice town in a great state. But there's Hawaii, Indonesia, Kenya, Washington and the south side of Chicago. And there's Wasilla. There is absolutely no way you can stand in the middle of the small town and think that a 44 year-old whose formative personal and professional experience comes from there is ready to lead the free world.

2008-08-25T18:28:00.002+02:00

James Carroll: Breaking the Cord with the Clintons:

Barack Obama defines himself by change. This week, he inherits a party that has made itself hostage to Clinton self-obsession. In fact, that defines his opportunity. If he can free himself and the Democrats from the shackles of such a past, changing a nation should be easy.

www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/08/25/breaking_the_cord_with_the_clintons/

2008-08-23T13:07:00.002+02:00

An open letter action to Barack Obama -- Change We Can Believe In -- can be signed by any concerned citizen at www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/open_letter.

'We urge you, then, to listen to the voices of the people who can lift you to the presidency and beyond. ....We recognize that compromise is necessary in any democracy. We understand that the pressures bought to bear on those seeking the highest office are intense. But retreating from the stands that have been the signature of your campaign will weaken the movement whose rigorous backing you need in order to win and then deliver the change you have promised.'

2008-08-18T11:31:00.004+02:00

These past few weeks were spent mourning the deaths of two friends, both of cancer, on both sides of the Atlantic. On the European side a 37 year old woman lost her battle to stomach cancer. It was a tragedy that shook everyone and not only because she had everything to live for: a young daughter, loving husband, good job, a zest for life. On the US side a 61 year old man lost his fight to pancreatic cancer. An old friend from college days, strangely the only one who was not a political ally, but someone who could respect another's opinion, who could look over and beyond immediate concerns to see the bigger picture. He was fluent in three languages, English, Spanish and Japanese and spent his few years of retirement helping out immigrants with health problems who needed a translator and a guide through finding health care in emergencies.

From all the agonies these two friends and their families encountered in the last six months, it was notable that invariably whenever calling New York to find out how things were the conversations would basically be centered on vehement complaints about how what was supposed to be excellent health insurance proved to be anything but, or how uncaring the hospital situation seemed to be, or how hard it was to get some advice from doctors or nurses, or how patients seem to be pushed around from one hospital to another and at the end, the family was forced to find a hospice so it could be present day and night with its loved one. It stood in stark contrast to how things are in Europe where the patient and her family could rely on the hospital and in all the many conversations about how things were, money was never, ever discussed. No reason to discuss medical bills because they were being paid for by her insurance company, in full. In fact, her husband will most likely not even know how much all those months of treatment cost. When the end came for her and it came within two and a half weeks of the final diagnosis, the hospital was there for her and her family.

In the magazine section of the Sunday Boston Globe Charles P. Pierce's article Sick Of It discusses healthcare and the present political campaign:

All of the issues in this campaign year seem to involve the fragility of things once taken for granted. Banks are failing. Mortgages seem like the end products of an elaborate three card monte game. The stock market is diving and taking our 401(k)s with it. All the tectonic plates beneath what we once glibly -- and smugly -- called The American Dream seem to be shifting almost by the hour. But health care is the issue that causes the deepest tremors. Even with the economy tanking and two wars groaning on, it's the issue on which all the shadowy polling data about whether the country is on 'the right track' comes into sharpest relief.

www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/08/17/sick_of_it/

2008-07-25T19:03:00.002+02:00

Desperately seeking the other America or why else would 200,000 citizens of another country stand for hours after having to go through security checks to hear Obama speak? Very many of those who attended are not necessarily fluent in English. Yet they came after years of being deeply disturbed and disappointed at US policies.

It is one thing to get up bleary eyed at three in the morning to hear a speech thousands of miles away or to find it on the Internet after having read the various commentaries on it. Yesterday one could settle in to experience the man and his speech at normal operating times. It was a rare glimpse to see just how accurate media reports have been on how this one candidate is.

Obama came across as striving for a dialogue with others. He appeared neither arrogant nor in any way a pop star or entertainer. There was nothing messianic in his speech. He approached the crowd with a genuine smile, started off declaring he wasn't speaking as a candidate, but rather as two citizens, that of the US and of the world. What surprised a leading national newspaper here was the fact he not only talked to US voters at home, but (correctly) remembered to speak to his European audience. How can you be in Berlin and not use the image of a Wall and relate it to the world today? Breaking down walls has to be the dominant theme in these times.

Reading through various US papers on the web today, there is an underlying theme that there are US voters still unsure if they can throw their support to him because they find him lacking in experience. He's all talk seems to be the motto and what exactly are his plans should he become President?

What were the Current Occupier's plans before he entered the White House? Were the voters fully aware of them pre-November 2000? When you start out trying to accomplish something politically, shouldn't the first move be with words? Words lead to actions and programs, but first let's get to know how the candidate ticks and thinks. Let's get a world picture from him (or her) and take it from there.

Your ECONOMIC STIMULUS CHECK and HOW TO SPEND IT

2008-07-19T10:59:00.002+02:00

Intriguing Ideas by Ann Wertheimer, Chair of American Voices Abroad Berlin

IF YOU PAID INCOME TAXES IN THE U.S. FOR 2007, you have probably already received your stimulus rebate check, your little part of this administration's Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, and have deposited it in a bank account back home. For taxpayers who filed a 2007 income tax return, the amount of the economic stimulus payment is calculated automatically by the IRS.

For example, if you owed net income tax of $600, you will receive a $600 rebate, unless you are someone's dependent, have an income over $75,000 ($150,000 for a married couple filing jointly) or do not have a valid Social Security number. “The payment is equal to the taxpayer's net income tax liability, but no more than $600 for a single person or $1,200 for a married couple filing a joint return. The minimum payment is $300 for a single person or $600 for a married couple filing jointly." To see how the Internal Revenue Service calculates stimulus payments, see http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=179211,00.html.

THERE MAY STILL BE TIME for Social Security beneficiaries, disabled vets and others who did not file a tax return to submit a 2007 form to receive an economic stimulus payment. To be eligible for a $300 payment you must have a valid Social Security number, at least $3,000 in qualifying income and not be a dependent or eligible to be a dependent on someone else's income tax return. This is not automatic. You must take the initiative. For details see http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=179949,00.html.

IF YOU RECEIVED A STIMULUS REBATE, PRESIDENT BUSH IS NOW EXPECTING YOU TO GO ON A SHOPPING SPREE. But you can fool him! Of course, if you have outstanding dollar IOUs, pay them off. And, if necessary, buy those made-in-Vermont socks and have them sent as a birthday present directly to your cousin. It might stimulate the U.S. economy.

But otherwise, HAVE YOU CONSIDERED DONATING TO THE ORGANIZATIONS OF YOUR CHOICE, WHICH ARE SURELY NOT THOSE THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION WOULD CHOOSE? This might be a real stimulus! You can think about who should get more or less, or simply donate the same amount to several. If you are unfamiliar with U.S. organizations that might suit you and your philosophy of giving, here are a few suggestions, just eight among many.

These are, of course, only my personal choices. I would be interested in hearing about yours. Write me at wertheim@zedat.fu-berlin.de.

Ann Wertheimer
Chair, American Voices Abroad Berlin

1. The American Civil Liberties Union www.aclu.org The ACLU is nonprofit and nonpartisan and has grown from a roomful of civil liberties activists to an organization of more than 500,000 members and supporters. It handles nearly 6,000 court cases annually from its offices in almost every state. The ACLU has maintained the position that civil liberties must be respected, even in times of national emergency.

2. United for Peace and Justice www.ufpj.org UFPJ is a coalition of more than 1400 local and national groups throughout the United States who have joined together to protest the immoral and disastrous Iraq War and oppose our government's policy of permanent warfare and empire-building. American Voices Abroad Berlin is a member group of UFPJ.

3. The Southern Poverty Law Center www.splcenter.org The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded in 1971 as a small civil rights law firm. Today, SPLC is internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of hate groups.

4. EMILY's List www.emilyslist.org EMILY's List members are dedicated to building a progressive America by electing pro-choice Democratic women to office. EMILY's List has a three-pronged strategy for victory: recruit and fund pro-choice Democratic women candidates; help them build and run effective campaigns; and, mobilize women voters to help elect progressive candidates across the nation. EMILY stands for Early Money Is Like Yeast!

5. J Street www.jstreet.org There is no actual J Street in Washington, but there should be! (K Street, as you may remember, is the street of lobbyists.) The organization called J Street was founded in 2008 to support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East as well as a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region. J Street supports diplomatic solutions over military ones, including in Iran; multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution; and dialogue over confrontation with a wide range of countries and actors when conflicts do arise. J Street will advocate forcefully in the policy process, in Congress, in the media, and in the Jewish community to make sure public officials and community leaders clearly see the depth and breadth of support for our views on Middle East policy among voters and supporters in their states and districts.

6. TruthOut www.truthout.org TruthOut is a full-service news agency, started in direct response to the mainstream media's coverage of the 2000 election, dedicated to establishing a powerful, stable voice for independent journalism. The core of its mission is educational, as it believes the biggest impediment to responsible decision-making is a lack of information. It provides citizens with reader-supported news instead of advertiser-supported news. Its direction is one of social progress, as it attempts to shed light on issues of vital interest to the community such as health care, the environment, international relations and human rights.

TruthOut scours the global news media for the most important stories it can find. It covers national issues concerning foreign policy, the war in Iraq, ethics in government, voter rights, human rights and the judiciary. It features unique coverage of health, energy, environmental, labor and women's issues. It alerts its readers to pivotal opinion pieces appearing in major newspapers and journals and emails free newsletters to its subscribers featuring the day's top stories.

7. National Public Radio www.npr.org/worldwide/berlin NPR Berlin broadcasts in Berlin at 104.1 FM (UKW). NPR is a privately supported, not-for-profit membership organization. You can see the station's weekly program schedule for Berlin at: http://www.npr.org/worldwide/nprworldwide.html
There does not seem to be a way to donate to NPR Berlin directly. But if you are a fan of a particular program (for example, The Diane Rehm Show – WAMU or Fresh Air with Terry Gross – WHYY), what about donating to that station. Or donate to the station that broadcasts in your hometown.

8. Agustin Aguayo Defense www.aguayodefense.org Agustin Aguayo is the conscientious objector who received the Stuttgarter Friedenspreis awarded by the AnStifter. Some of you may have met Augie at an American Voices Abroad Berlin reception held in his honor at Pam Selwyn's house last year.

Augie writes that he and his wife Helga are devoting their time "to young people who are thinking about enlisting and those targeted by military recruiters. This year we are determined to see at least 10,000 teenagers and young adults and provide them with the information that will help them make informed decisions. (We have seen nearly 5,000 this year already — YOU can help us reach our goal of 10,000!) Our mission is to provide young people with an alternative and realistic point of view about military enlistment, and to show them the power of living with conscience. Our message helps young people understand that they don't have to join the military to learn valuable skills, find adventure, pay for college, or serve others."

2008-07-15T17:23:00.002+02:00

Anne Applebaum's An Election Goes Abroad in The Washington Post:

...It's also useful for American voters to spend some time thinking about how their president will be perceived abroad because that's where he's going to be spending a lot of his time, like it or not. ....If Obama or McCain is going to be preoccupied with foreigners, perhaps it's not a bad idea for both to prove they can cope.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/14/AR2008071401844.html

2008-07-04T11:19:00.002+02:00

Rosa Brooks in The Founders' Right Stuff in the LA Times says it best on this Fourth of July:

..... The Constitution also doesn't contain any footnotes that say, 'Note to our descendants: The Constitution is intended for easy times only. At the first sign of trouble, feed this document to your dog. .....This Fourth of July, celebrate by re-reading the Declaration of Independence, created by more or less the same crowd who brought us the Constitution, 11 years and one war later. Remember it?

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'

Wild Stuff! To the founders, 'all men' have 'inalienable rights' --- not just US citizens in the continental United States. .....The founders had a word for governments that respected rights only arbitrarily and selectively: tyranny.

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks3-2008jul03,0,5347543.column

2008-06-27T15:02:00.002+02:00

Almost daily there is another anniversary being remembered in the media: the start of the Cold War as well as the Berlin Airlift 60 years ago, Prague Spring and the 68 Student Movement 40 years ago. Spiegel International has a Cold War interview with ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in Both Sides Were in the Grips of Insanity .....Things have not changed.

Schmidt: The greatest strategic challenge in the 21^st century is not terrorism but rather the population explosion and the growing cultural conflict between the West and the Islamic part of the world. These problems could produce mass migrations and possibly even wars.

www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,562315,00.html

2008-06-11T11:54:00.010+02:00

The shopping spree can begin. The 2008 economic stimulus check the US Treasury is sending out to citizens arrived in the mail this morning. After deducting the fee it will cost to cash it here plus the exchange rate, there won't be too much left over for luxuries. Perhaps a few good books can now be ordered or a few magazine subscriptions paid for. Just how to go about aiding the US economy here is the tricky part. Perhaps scouring through supermarkets looking for US products might serve the purpose.

Nice populist touch sending citizens money just like that. Of course, if one took the whole sum sent out and decided to do something for the common good, like rebuilding bridges and roads, investing in research and education, providing some sort of health care for all citizens, the money would have been far better spent. Instead each individual gets to pay off debts or at most use it for energy costs. Nothing solved and next to nothing gained.

2008-06-04T16:04:00.001+02:00

The long shot candidate, the one who appealed to all citizens and who took all states, not just swing or larger ones seriously, has captured the nomination. It's good someone coming up and out of nowhere-- as far as the political or media landscape is concerned-- gets the prize. The last month spent in a hospital and rehab center and out of touch with the internet, international newspapers and surrounded by other people's illnesses and stories provided a down-to-earth reality check. It was good to have a respite from relentless headlines focusing only on the item of the day, a political horserace. Interestingly too was how being the only American around, others were very careful about not bringing up politics or the war. There seemed to be an unwritten law that separates US policies from individual citizens, particularly if that citizen can converse in their language and present the appearance of adapting to another society. Yet one remains the American or an American, no doubt about it. Somehow part of them, somehow distinct and different.

If nothing else, hospital stays provide ample time to envelope oneself in a few good books. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson showed how one individual can indeed get out and change the world. His mission of providing schools for girls in faraway places that became pivotal after 9/11 when according to his experiences US officials in various departments in Washington hardly had a clue what was going on in such remote places. This was followed by three very New York novels: The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt grapples with the past of main character's boyhood times and his father's experience in WW II and the present day in NYC and was at times almost magical in its themes; The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud which gave a social portrayal of pre- 9/11 days in the city and Falling Man by Don DeLillo which is relentless in recalling the days and emotions immediately following that day. It was the most difficult one to read.

There was of course the drama of listening to other people's problems getting over illness and struggling to come to term with life in general. It was also a vast relief knowing health insurance does what it is supposed to do, covering everything required without demanding large sums to be paid out of pocket.

2008-04-28T19:58:00.002+02:00

It's time out for total hip replacement surgery. The so-called merry month of May will be devoted to learning how to walk again and to take some time off from observing the political circus and all the ill winds it brews up in wars, torture and running the nation aground. It will be time to read books again. Novels, for example, The Sorrows of an American by Siri Huvstvedt, and an interesting book sent over by a good friend in Pennsylvania, Three Cups of Tea --- One Man's Mission to Promote Peace---One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, as well as Das Wochenende by Bernhard Schlink, among others.

Back in the late 70s working on an MA in England, it was perplexing hearing other Americans mock Jimmy Carter for taking time-out to think about things before making decisions. Real Americans know on the spot how to make decisions. Think about that 3am telephone call. Perhaps it would not be a bad idea for all of Washington to take some time off and get a grasp at what is really happening in the world outside.

Till sometime in June......

2008-04-21T18:14:00.001+02:00

Putting things into perspective before the voting begins tomorrow, a letter from Washington: Campaign stereotypes are spoiling the race by Albert Hunt.

'And Barack Obama isn't an elitist. When he graduated from Harvard Law School he didn't join a Wall Street firm or serve on the board of a big company; he became a community organizer at a fraction of what he could have made. ……Judging by polls and conversations with some voters, rank-and-file Pennsylvanians see through the phoniness of bittergate.'

www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/20/america/letter.php

Of course, there isn't anything left to do but wait and see till early Wednesday morning.

2008-04-13T11:28:00.002+02:00

No one can point it out better than Dick Cavett. Memo to Petraeus &Crocker: More Laughs Please:

And no one need be unlucky enough to be dead or hideously wounded anymore. Those unfortunates are merely 'casualties' ---- a sort of restful-sounding word. I have a friend who would like to say to our distinguished warrior, 'General Petraeus, my son was killed in one of your challenges.'

http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/11

2008-03-19T15:37:00.002+01:00

David Corn in Mother Jones on Obama's 'daring and unique' speech on race:

This is a sophisticated a discussion of race as any American politican has sought to present to the public. Obama was not condemning anyone. His key to post-racial transformation? End the blame game. In the end, he argued, black-and-white matters less - or should matter less - than issues of class and economic power.

www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/03/7695_black_and_more.html

2008-03-05T16:58:00.003+01:00

The fat lady isn't singing yet, but she is humming a mournful song. Why do we applaud political races that resemble a scene from the Coliseum? Throw your opponent to the lions, maul him, spin away as much as possible and the media laps it up. Why not? It sells newspapers.

Take that 3am red scare ad and ask how much this has to do with films and TV and how little it has to do with reality. Did 9/11 come in the middle of the night while the children were sleeping? No, it came at 9am on a clear, sunny, cloudless day while they were attending school. At a time when there should have been plenty of response, but there was none. At a time that perfectly attracted the world-wide media. Does attacking an opponent in a political race and standing back testing his or her immediate response prove that candidate will later be the better President? It isn't necessarily snap judgments 24/7 that are needed as much as the ability to grasp in-depth knowledge on just about everything going on in this world. It is probably far more important to be able to have the best advisors around and the ability to listen to them and then decide on a course of action.

What comes across this primary season 'over here' is a vivid sense of democray being played out and an interestingly new perception of the US. It suddenly isn't the red states vs the blue ones. Rather there are those states, often sidelined in an election season, that seem far more interested in experimenting in change as opposed to those crucial large states that seem to clutch to the status quo. Residents of New York and California see themselves as front-runners on all things new and progressive, but that is not the signal these primaries are sending out. It is a pity that one candidate sees things too much through the lens of the Electoral College, which still denies the principle of one person, one vote.

Postscript: In Dreams from Obama by Darryl Pinckney at www.nybooks.com/articles/21063:

Black people can appreciate as much as white people the inclusiveness of his mixed-race heritage and that his story is in part that of an immigrant. But this is not a color-blind election. People aren't voting for Obama in spite of the fact that he is black, or because he is only half-black, they are voting for him because he is black, and this is a whole new feeling in the country and in presidential politics.

2008-02-24T15:40:00.004+01:00

Interesting Comment from An American Citizen who has been living and working in Washington, DC for many years:

I read this op-ed (Wash Post 2/17) by David Ignatius about Obama's experience or lack thereof. He looked back at the first 18 months of the Kennedy administration, which were mostly spent in a very steep learning curve, especially in terms of foreign affairs, culminating in the Cuban missile crisis. We tend to forget that Kennedy was not exactly a glittering success in domestic policies and the only reason he looks good in the Cuban missile crisis is because Russia backed down. Then there was that whole Bay of Pigs ugliness.

It suddenly occurred to me that one guy looking on with great interest must be Vladimir Putin. He definitely has ambitions and may well be licking his chops at the chance to test Obama. We Americans tend to view the world in terms of an unending Manifest Destiny, whereas Europeans I think see things more in terms of Empires that come and go. And clearly you could make the case that the American Empire is going, going, maybe gone. A guy like Putin who clearly has great ambitions and would love to head up a newly resurgent Russian Empire may well see this as his moment. Certainly if you look at the classic signs --- a weakened economy, the decline in cultural literacy, destructive wars fought far from home --- America fits right into the mold of an empire on the decline.

I can remember walking down M Street with H. sometime in the late 60s and saying to him that I couldn't see how the USSR could possibly survive. I based that on the belief that no country that fucked up could possibly endure for long. H. just sort of humored me but I remember that conversation well and I have that same sort of feeling now that something big is coming our way and it ain't good.

Oddly enough, I also have the feeling that Obama could be the one guy who could turn things around in terms of getting the world to see us in a better light. Are we looking at win-win or lose-lose? And what would happen if Hillary or McCain wins? I guess we are doomed to live perpetually in uncertain times.

He included an added comment on Putin when agreeing to have his words put up here:

As for Putin, you should definitely be worried. This is one scary guy who definitely has plans. The collapse of an empire is always a dangerous time and the repercussions may take a few decades to full unfold. Here we have two empires --- the old Soviet empire and the new American empire ---- that are in various stages of decline and birth.

Kosovo may prove to be a revealing snapshot of where we are. The 20th Century started out with a war that had its initial spark in that region. Hate to see history repeat itself, but this whole situation is so reminiscent of the entangling alliances that caused so much trouble before.

The David Ignatius column at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502962.html

2008-02-21T17:21:00.002+01:00

The two candidates debate in Texas tonight. Lest the war in Iraq gets too little notice with the economy being more the front line issue, the following two articles are on Iraq:

Fort Hood Soldiers Breaking the Silence in War in Iraq at www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=200673

The honest truth is that if the American people knew what was going on over there everyday, they would be raising their voices too. They would be saying 'Hey, bring those guys home,' Sgt. Selena Coppa said. Coppa blames lawmakers in Washington for filtering the facts on the war in Iraq. She said there's no real end in sight.

German Arms Firm Ends Blackwater Deal After TV Report at www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3135177,00.html

Weapons manufacturer Heckler&Koch said it would end its relationship with Blackwater after German media reported that the controversial US-ran military firm was using its guns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2008-02-14T16:50:00.004+01:00

On the issue of what good medicine costs today, Richard Bernstein compares the cost of hip replacement surgery in the US and Germany in his Letter from America in the IHT. In Germany the cost of a total hip replacement would be 7,000 to 13,000 euros ($10,200 - $19,000) depending on the patient's condition and whether there are complications according to one of the national health insurers, AOK. A private clinic would charge about 20,000 euros. Bernstein's own operation in New York last year will end up being around $40,000, or perhaps a few thousand more, once the bills for anesthesia, for four days in the hospital, for medications, pre-and post-operative exams, physical therapy and the prosthesis itself are added in.
www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/13/america/letter.php

A patient undergoing hip replacement in Germany will not even see an bill or even have an inkling of what it all costs if he or she is within the 90% of the population depending on a national health insurance. Except for a very small out of pocket charge of around 10 euros per hospital day, the patient will not be presented with a bill. He or she will most likely spend more time in the hospital than four days and then be sent on to a rehab program, all covered by insurance.
The patient will not have to wait months for an appointment and in Hamburg, at any rate, one can now go online to review how hospitals score on hip replacement when trying to decide where to go.

2008-02-12T09:53:00.001+01:00

A first hand report from an American friend in Munich:

Obama's Fireside Chat Abroad - Con Call with U. S. citizens around the world

Barack Obama's con call to thousands of Americans abroad yesterday was an idea as fresh and innovative as Roosevelt's famous fireside chats. He spoke about the issues that particularly touch those living far away, but without in any way minimizing the weight of the issues at home in the United States. For old folks it brought back memories of how families used to sit around the radio at night to listen to the news together. This call touched a nerve in the emotions of Americans everywhere and will go down in history as a landmark when the global community came together at 16:15 Central European time on February 11, 2008 to listen to a man who might become the next President of the United States.

This is not a political endorsement, but an objective observation about a very unique way to personally reach citizens outside the country.

Marina in Munich

2008-02-07T17:36:00.000+01:00

On the Democrats by Frank Rich: .......the race for the Democratic nomination is going to be a scramble built less on policy than on a wide variety of factors including race, gender, negative campaigning, and the usual unpredicable events of any political season. ......Compared to the Bush presidency, almost any conceivable Democratic ticket would seem a step up to the vast majority of voters eager to turn the page. The Democrats could yet lose the White House in 2008, especially if the general election becomes a referendum on the Clintons or race, but it would take the party's full powers of self-immolation to do so.
www.nybooks.com/articles/21038

2008-01-31T18:44:00.001+01:00

Interesting week politically and especially when you get to watch people going to the polls in two nations. Creeping out of bed at 5 am on Sunday to see who won in South Carolina and tuning in at 6pm to register who might win in the state of Hessen in Germany. A woman, Andrea Ypsilanti, very smart, well educated, self-made, from a blue collar background, with, no less, a non-German last name managed to pull even with the current Governor, Roland Koch. Koch managed to pull every (cheap) card out of his sleeve during the campaign to attack young migrants for their violence. Of course during the course of his tirades, three young German thugs were finally caught who almost beat a poor man to death in Hamburg on New Year's Day. This time the public was in no mood to be pandered to on this level. The first time running Koch tossed the idea that having two citizenships and being allowed to vote in two countries was an outrage and his message managed to get him elected. (For the record, my two adult children have two citizenships and vote in the US elections as Special Federal Voters from the State of New York and vote in all German elections, including the upcoming Hamburg one in February. I can only vote in federal US elections because if I were to become a German, I would be forced to renounce my US citizenship. Since my children received their citizenships as a birth right from both mother and father, they are allowed to do what I can never do simply because I live here with a German husband.)

Politically, German women have been breaking the so-called glass ceiling on their own, without a husband who preceded them in office, without having gone to any 'women's only college', without big family money behind them, without big name universities, but rather state universities which till now did not charge tuition. An argument can be made that it was the Green Party that helped women find a political voice and introduced not only women but alternative life styles to a rather formal, male dominated political scene.

People here are very involved in following the US primaries. How can they not after almost eight years of Bush II, the war in Iraq, the dismal economic news plus a cast of colorful characters, high emotions and the fact that the man and woman on the street forces the candidates to come down and speak to them. However, it's not the former First Lady as much as her rival who is attracting attention. Once upon a time here a US diplomat remarked on how his daughter knew so many Presidents, but my children seemed to know only one German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl who was in office for so many years, one lost count. Times have indeed changed. It is now young Americans who only seem to know Bush, Clinton, Bush, perhaps another Clinton with a Kennedy or two thrown in it all. It seems odd and disturbing in such difficult times that so few are running, including other women. However, as in most things in US life today, money rules and without mega-bucks (whether through marriage, either to a millionaire or to a former President) throwing one's hat into the ring becomes a probably too daunting hurdle to climb. Sad, very sad state of affairs.

2008-01-24T18:18:00.001+01:00

Two New York newspapers comment on the current state of the primaries. New York's 'hometown' newspaper takes a close look at Hillary going negative today:

'Employing innuendo and half-truths against Sen. Barack Obama, Sen Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former President, have introduced the politics of personal destruction to the Democratic presidential campaign. They bear responsibility for cheapening the tone of the contest. ...... They have gone well beyond engaging in tough political jousting while steering the campaign far from substantive issues.'

www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/01/24/2008-01-24_hillary_goes_negative-3.html

The New York Observer has endorsed Sen. Obama for President in the February 5^th primary:

'Because of who he is and what he stands for, a former constitutional law teacher with few ties to the Washington establishment yet a sophisticated respect for it, Mr. Obama stands the best chance of restoring the essential relationship between power and the American people. He is not flanked and blocked by an existing, entrenched power structure; his words are not muddied by layers of handlers; he still says what he means. .......We believe that Mr. Obama's idealism and fresh ideas would ensure that the end of the Bush era would also mean an end to government by secrecy, Cheneyism, arrogance, oligarchy; an end to mindless armed unilateralism abroad; an end of the blustering, rank partisan disputes of the last quarter-century.'

www.observer.com/2008/february-5-obama

2008-01-14T17:47:00.000+01:00

Four euros postage to send in the primary ballot for Super Tuesday in New York State. So who is going to win this time around the clerk asked? Obama! There are a number of reasons this one white woman over a certain age voted for him: he opposed the Iraq war early on, and he represents a real chance to bring the US together again in a climate where people seem to be trapped in political trenches. Should he be elected President and there seems to be good cause to believe many independents and even some Republicans would cross over to him, the symbol of him taking the oath would help ease strong anti-American feelings around the globe. Add to this a nagging dislike for carpetbaggers. Even back in the sixties, there was a sense that Robert Kennedy wasn't a New Yorker and should not have been its Senator. It was the emotion of those years that got him elected. Likewise with Senator Clinton. It was the emotions of the impeachment hearings that helped elevate her to representing New Yorkers. The decision wasn't a difficult one --- it was a choice between a new beginning or a continuation of ugly political mudslinging.

2008-01-04T12:50:00.001+01:00

First news of the day was cause for relief and a loud cry of joy! Barack Obama won big in a state where 92% are white. If he can do it there, then he can do it anywhere in the US. Many things were inspiring: his way of presenting himself, his refusal of just throwing numbers and mind blogging statistics at every problem, his call for change in an atmosphere of cynicism, his taking citizens seriously and not appearing to manipulate them.

Given the choice between voting for a black man or a woman, many young single women tended to head to Obama. Why not? When the first woman is finally elected President, let it be one who has truly done it on her own. Let's not start going down the road that leads most First Ladies to think they have to throw their hats in the ring. There should be no sense of entitlement because one's father or husband (or wife) has been President. It would be unbearable to go on from Bush to Clinton to Bush to Clinton (not to mention the option of having a former two term president back in the White House and all the messiness that entails) to perhaps yet another Bush. In a country of 300 million surely there are very many highly talented people with new ideas who can run.

Did the war in Iraq take a back seat in this one primary campaign as leading newspapers are reporting? A gut feeling says no. The war is there: it's lurking in the background, putting a stain on our collective soul and draining the economy of money desperately needed for domestic problems, health insurance for all citizens being one of the most pressing issues.

No point in reading too much into one primary when so many others are coming up. Yet something special happened yesterday. A glimmer of an ideal of what America is all about put in an appearance and it was great seeing it finally, after these almost eight years of darkness.

A Dynasty Isn't a Democracy by Rosa Brooks at www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/03/6135

2008-01-01T14:09:00.001+01:00

The emotionally roiling issue of whether to ban smoking in pubs and restaurants in Germany is somewhat settled on this New Year's Day in 11 of 16 states. Bavaria is banning all smoking almost everywhere including in private gatherings in restaurants whereas Hamburg is banning it generally speaking but not in receptions in separate rooms. It has been a long and very drawn out debate because of one publicly little known fact that lurks in the background. The anti-tobacco campaign of the Nazis: a little known aspect of public health in Germany, 1933-1945 at http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/313/7070/1450 gives a detailed history of how and why the Nazis sought to repress smoking. The author concludes 'It means simply that scientific memories are often clouded by the celebrations of victors and that the political history of science is occasionally less pleasant than we would wish.'

Nobody likes to tell other people what to do with their lives and certainly not to criticize personal habits. Sitting in a restaurant where tables are sometimes shared with strangers and having smoke being blown into your face-- which happened years ago here-- and being rather roughly told the right to smoke is of a higher value probably was the beginning of the end of smokers' rights. Years ago at a parents-teachers evening in the classroom which would be used the next day it took months of heated discussion to get a vote to have smokers' breaks and even then, the teacher decided not to follow the majority's vote. 'I don't care what anyone has to say about my right to light up,' she declared and puffed away. Then again, there is former chancellor Helmut Schmidt who turned 90 last month who refuses to allow any ban on his smoking. You can't help but to admire him and his accomplishments.

Is it just a power play between individuals or is there a real threat from passive smoking? In Best of 2007 at www.medjournalwatch.blogspot.com the writer sums up what he has learned this year after looking at the scientific facts outside of the mainstream press. His take on passive smoking is that it does indeed harm and furthermore 'A second point is the fact that the victim of secondhand smoke is being harmed against his or her own will which must be weighted stronger that bad consequences of own behavior.'

Just how this ban is going to be enforced is an open question. Will smokers just continue to light up and pretend nothing has changed which often happens at train stations under no-smoking signs? In the end it's a bit like getting people to clean up after their dogs. There are laws on the books but little will and lots of heated emotions about whether to follow or enforce them.

2007-12-23T17:26:00.001+01:00

An impenetrable fog envelops Hamburg today. The lights of neighbors' houses can hardly be seen. Very icy road conditions led to many accidents and warnings even to those just out walking. The Christmas tree, a small one this time bought in another part of town to escape horrendous price gorging, is up decorated not with colored lights but with white fiberglass ones meant to look a bit like doves.

There's an interesting article in this Sunday's Boston Globe on how Christmas is a season of superstition. Among many other tidbits of information the writer informs us 'Whatever you dream on any of the twelve nights between Christmas and Epiphany (January 6^th) will come to pass within the next year. ' Perhaps it might be best to get to bed early and do lots of serious dreaming, about political candidates, the upcoming primaries and election, the war in Iraq, injustice and intolerance everywhere. Perhaps eggnog or sparkling glasses of wine should be enhanced with a potion to let us dream continuously through these upcoming twelve days of Christmas. To dream what seems to be the impossible dream. But then again, perhaps not?

www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/12/23/season_of_superstition

2007-12-16T16:21:00.001+01:00

Reading this weekend's papers gave a very different perspective on Christmas shopping in New York in this season of the fall of the dollar. The IHT was rather brazen with Europeans flaunt their buying power in the US where it proclaimed 'Add a new superlative to New York's long list of titles: world's most fabulous discount mall.' www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/14/business/shop.php The Sueddeutsche Zeitung had another take on shopping in New York these days. Stress und die City at www.sueddeutsche.de/reise/artikel/481/148131. Christmas Shopping in New York? It's anything other than a winter wonderland, unless, of course, it snows. According to the writer most tourists are flying over to shop, thought they are reluctant to admit it. They are there to take in the museums and to pilgrim to where the World Trade Center once stood and look out over a depressing construction site minus the photos of the victims in a city that is cold and grey. One could book a walking tour that would explain everything about 9/11, but it's cold outside and just across from this site is the number one discount store in New York, Century 21. It seems slightly inappropriate to head immediately over to a shopping highlight after paying one's respects, but that's how things are in New York.

Miracle on 34^th Street was on TV last night. New York and the perfect life on the Upper East or West Side during a time when Santa was still allowed to sit pretty little girls on his knee and point out where parents can buy toys at cheaper prices at the competition and, most important, our judicial system was still functioning. The judge might have been bought, but in the end, justice freed Santa. These old films seem from another world these days.

The Island at the Center of the World -- the epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America by Russell Shorto is delightful to read. 'Sailing silently into the inner harbor, approaching the southern tip of Manhattan Island, the ships glided into a reedy, marshy expanse of tidal wetland, a complicated crossover region of freshwater and marine species........Rising up above the island's reedy shoreline were forested hills: the best guess on the origin of the Indian name that would stick is the Delaware mannahata, 'hilly island', though some have suggested that simply 'the island' or 'the small island' is a more accurate translation. Putting foot to solid ground, the settlers decided they liked what they saw. 'We are much gratified on arriving in this country.' One wrote home. 'Here we found beautiful rivers, bubbling fountains flowing down into the valleys; basins of running waters in the flatlands, agreeable fruits in the woods, such as strawberries, pigeon berries, walnuts, and also .....wild grapes. The woods abound with acorns for feeding hogs, and with venison. There is considerable fish in the rivers; good tillage land; here is especially free coming and going, without fear of the naked natives of the country.......'

2007-12-09T14:41:00.001+01:00

The shock came with a too early Christmas card, not sent from North Carolina but from New York City. A very old friend who recently retired from teaching Japanese and history in a good high school in New York chose to move to Boone, North Carolina. He wanted to 'talk the talk and walk the walk' of a real American, whatever that means. An odd choice it seemed for someone born and bred in Manhattan, no less. He seemed happy doing volunteer work, mowing the lawn, getting a huge dog, driving his wife to work. She being another 'real' New Yorker has no driver's license. Imagine living outside a big city in North America and having no driver's license. It sounds politically correct in these days of global warming but it makes life impossible for there is no other way of getting around other than driving. Living in Manhattan where the line for a non-driver's license needed for identification is longer than for those renewing their driver's license is a world away from Boone. In the end a move from NYC to Europe, even considering struggling with another language later in life, is probably easier to adjust to than settling down in what is a truly lovely area but a world away in lifestyle. Sometimes the perspective living abroad divides the world up between those who stay put and those who are willing to venture out, plunge in and learn the talk and the walk. You learn to admire both: those with close connection to their roots and traditions as well as those willing to test the waters of something new and different.

The shock was a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in October. It's often called the silent cancer since symptoms aren't noticed until it is usually rather advanced. He still seemed in shock on the phone from a hospital bed in NYC yesterday. He wasn't expecting something like this now and he was very worried about his wife, who is 12 years younger than he and as he explained when he goes, so goes everyone's health insurance in his family. With all the unforeseen problems that such an illness creates, all the misery and pain, the sorrow and fears, it seems particularly crass and inhumane that in such a situation patients have to worry about their loved ones and how they are going to survive afterwards. Will she at age 50 regain her old teaching job in NYC and get adequate health insurance? Forget North Carolina he said because she can't drive. Thus her job and the life they built up there is gone.

These past three years have been hard ones here with a diagnosis of Parkinson's, one silent stroke, another less silent one that at first caused the left side to go lame, but excellent and immediate health care literally saw the symptoms reverse the lameness within hours, and then months later a major heart attack. With all the life and death issues one is confronted with, here one doesn't have to worry about medical bills or the cost of all the various pills needed. Within a system where everyone who works and earns over 400 euros a month is required by law to have health insurance, it is there when you need it. Everyone is covered. Insurance companies are required by law to make deals with the drug companies and pass savings on to their customers. Thus for Parkinson's two drugs don't even require the normal co-payment of 10 euros and the other medicine which does cost about 400 a month only costs the patient 10. The doctors are required to try out less expensive medications, but if the patient can't cope with it and needs the more expensive one, once this fact has been proven the insurance covers it. There is also an astounding network of rehabilitation that is provided by one's health insurance. Hamburg has an array of heart physical therapy, stress coping exercises and assorted other groups aimed to help the patient cope with lifestyle changes.

All of this comes with a price and perhaps at the end of the month with less money to spend on other things. In our case it's 860 euros a month, but it brings peace of mind and with many other problems on the table, we certainly will not be confronted with concerns about if we can afford medicine or how to pay doctors bills or if the surviving partner is going to have health insurance. All this is included along with a free choice of doctors and excellent hospitals. Of course, it seems only fair that after having paid into the system one's entire working life, it's there for you when needed.

2007-12-06T17:43:00.001+01:00

It is tongue-in-cheek, no it's more than that. It's biting. To a certain extent, it's beyond derision, never mind comprehension. Guantanamo --A Great Victory by Sabin Willett.

'No one alleges that Joseph was ever a terrorist, or a soldier, or a criminal. The military told him in 2002 he was innocent. Again in 2003. Again in 2006. Joseph slips with the others down isolation's slope. He stands in the twilight. Beyond, the darkness of insanity beckons. He seems ready to surrender to it. Somewhere in the file drawer in Guantanamo is a copy of the memo that clears Joseph for release. But it was written in 2006, and is as forgotten as he is.'

www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/05/opinion/edwillet.php

2007-11-29T18:08:00.000+01:00

Overseas US voters might have a better chance of registering to vote and getting their votes counted in Efforts Increase to Enfranchise US Citizens Abroad at
www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/28/america/vote.php

2007-11-28T16:47:00.001+01:00

Gabor Steingart's column West Wing in Der Spiegel Online discusses his view on the current mood in the US -- The Depressed Superpower.

'Optimism, once considered practically a part of the American genetic makeup, has suffered considerably in recent years.'

'The only thing that has doubled in the seven years of the Bush administration is the country's military budget. By comparison, the average US family income has stagnated in the last decade or so.'

'Americans are capable of handling anything -- just not the notion that something cannot be improved. .....But perhaps America's collective depression has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton or George W. Bush. Perhaps neither the Iraq war nor globalization is solely to blame for America's blues. What if the real problem lies with the American people and not with the circumstances? The challenges facing America today are not more daunting than those of the past. ......But the difference is that the people facing today's challenges do so with weakened reserves of strength.'

www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,519890,00.html

2007-11-20T19:12:00.001+01:00

We walked out of American Gangster on Sunday afternoon. Not having been to the movies recently, we had the urge to get back into what US films are portraying about its present state. Granted the new Redford film was our first choice. While it seemed to be praised in German reviews, it was most definitely being slammed in the US media, something even the Sueddeutsche Zeitung commented on last week. In the November 12 issue of The New Yorker which has just arrived here Lions for Lambs 'is most charitably described as Ibsen with helicopters.' It was harshly dismissed and not only in that magazine. There was, however, no afternoon showing and so American Gangster, supposedly a comment on US society, was the next choice. There is always a rather endless assortment of commercials preceding films here, some of them almost naively amusing in an unprofessional way, particularly if the product is a local one. It's something you more or less take for granted while finding your seat and settling in. Immediately following these ads are those for upcoming movies and this time it was one violent scene after the other while the loudspeakers blared on making these almost physically painful. There was an inner plea for the film to start, but the violence was never ending and the scenes from ads to current film were seamless. The violence and the blood-letting continued unabated and the shrillness coming from loudspeakers on both sides were unbearable. Finally a break and we could flee.

Do we really need to spend 19 Euros to see such appalling violence at the movies when all we have to do is turn on the evening news? Perhaps it's because here in Europe the news can be picked up on public TV many times in the evening and is rather thorough in letting its audience know what's going on in the world. The scenes these last four years from Iraq have not covered up the blood-letting and tragedy there. Perhaps too it was all that up-front shooting in the film that got under our skin. There was a school shooting in Finland, of all places, recently where a number of students and teachers were killed so in the face. There is the case down in Cologne where two young adults were planning to stage a rampage in their school but did an about face. One has since committed suicide after being confronted with his site and idea. Violence is ever-present on the web and continuously being hammered home to us on the nightly news and obviously being glorified for commercial reasons in films. Light hearted comedy hardly reflects these times. If Lions for Lambs really deserved to be so dismissed by its home critics is something we'll have to see for ourselves soon.

2007-11-13T18:26:00.000+01:00

Riverbend from Baghdad Burning has managed to blog on life as a refugee in Syria.

'We were all refugees. I was suddenly a number. No matter how wealthy or educated or comfortable, a refugee is a refugee. A refugee is someone who isn't really welcome in any country -- including their own....especially their own.'

www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com

2007-11-10T16:51:00.000+01:00

A North Sea storm swept over the area bringing in the wet and dreary side of autumn. In Friday's Sueddeutche Zeitung there was an interesting interview with Naomi Wolf whose book The End of America: A letter of warning to a young patriot will soon be published. Wolf parrallels the present regime in Washington with the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s. The interview in German can be read at www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/artikel/269/141960.

2007-11-05T11:59:00.000+01:00

There is a sign-up window on the upper right of the main page of TomDispatch.com. His posts are too interesting to miss. His latest one --- Advice to a Young Builder in Tough Times - Imperial Opportunities Abound --- reveals how 'on the planet Americans are building up a storm.' First there is the 'mother of all embassies' in Baghdad which is meant to hold 1000 diplomats, spies and military types. About 70 kilometers north of Baghdad is Balad Air Base which is essentially an American small town. 'Camp Cupcake' another base in Iraq holds 17,000 people plus luxuries one doesn't normally associated with present living conditions in Iraq.

Of course, it isn't only bases Americans build around the world. A network of offshore prisons is soaking up millions of tax dollars. He points out how 95% of all foreign bases on this planet are US bases. The rest of the world is aware of this, but few Americans seem to be.

'The fact is: In Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, our garrisons regularly slip beneath the American radar. Think of it, perhaps, as a way to have our cake and eat it too. We manage to be an imperial presence on the planet without ever quite having to be reminded that we are part of an empire, an identification which rubs against the American grain.'
www.tomdispatch.com/post/174858/baseless_considerations

From "A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT" By Mark Twain

2007-10-31T09:25:00.000+01:00

I often wonder what Mark Twain would say today. This is what he said then (1889):

These poor ostensible freemen who were sharing their breakfast and their talk with me, were as full of humble reverence for their king and Church and nobility as their worst enemy could desire. There was something pitifully ludicrous about it. I asked them if they supposed a nation of people ever existed, who, with a free vote in every man's hand, would elect that a single family and its descendants should reign over it forever, whether gifted or boobies, to the exclusion of all other families--including the voter's; and would also elect that a certain hundred families should be raised to dizzy summits of rank, and clothed on with offensive transmissible glories and privileges to the exclusion of the rest of the nation's families--
including his own.

They all looked unhit, and said they didn't know; that they had never thought about it before, and it hadn't ever occurred to them that a nation could be so situated that every man could have a say in the government. I said I had seen one--and that it would last until it had an Established Church. Again they were all unhit--at first. But presently one man looked up and asked me to state that proposition again; and state it slowly, so it could soak into his understanding. I did it; and after a little he had the idea, and he brought his fist down and said _he_ didn't believe a nation where every man had a vote would voluntarily get down in the mud and dirt in any such way; and that to steal from a nation its will and preference must be a crime and the first of all crimes. I said to myself:

"This one's a man. If I were backed by enough of his sort, I would make a strike for the welfare of this country, and try to prove myself its loyalest citizen by making a wholesome change in its system of government."

You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags--that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares "that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient."

Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.

And now here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country should be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its population. For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dissatisfaction with the regnant system and propose to change it, would have made the whole six shudder as one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black treason. So to speak, I was become a stockholder in a corporation where nine hundred and ninety-four of the members furnished all the money and did all the work, and the other six elected themselves a permanent board of direction and took all the dividends. It seemed to me that what the nine hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal.

2007-10-28T12:46:00.000+01:00

Raking leaves on a placid October afternoon with the fresh smell of the earth, the array of colors particularly the trees offer, the tide of sun out or haziness in, even the thought of it all having to be done again in a matter of days doesn't deter from the soothing effect it has. Getting lost outdoors in these last days before gale force North Sea storms set in or the long drawn out months of winter, sometimes drab, less often sparkling with snow is similar to getting lost to everything through music, either playing it or simply listening to it. German media amply covered those horrific firestorms in California. There is an interesting article in today's NYT about how difficult it is to juggle nature's need to renew through fires with people's stubbornness and determination to live in one particular place. Of course parts of California are magnificent to live in with views of the Pacific, the desert, the mountains. Gazing at the Pacific is quite something else than looking out over the Atlantic. Then again the North Sea is quite something else than the Baltic. Once, having spent over five weeks out west in the US, I wondered how the readjustment to Europe would be with its small parcels of land and far less space. Yet upon returning here, I was taken aback by its beauty in smaller details, yet in no way less lovely. There is subtle beauty in things being close together. Within less than an hour's drive from the heart of the city, farms are open on Sundays offering old sorts of delicious apples, pears, quince, potatoes, pumpkins and close by one can stroll along the Elbe.

As for music, here is an article in the September 17th issue of The New Yorker which shows a rather all too normal side to it, alas. Fantasia for Piano by Mark Singer at www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/17/070917fa_fact_singer. Unfortunately hoax and deceiving others don't only exist in the business or political world. What a read.

2007-10-17T14:47:00.000+02:00

We can continue to blame the Bush administration for the horrors of Iraq -- and should. ....But we Americans must also examine our own responsibility for the hideous acts committed in our name in a war where we have now fought longer than we did in the one that put Verschaerfte Vernehmung (enhanced or intensified interrogation) on the map.

Frank Rich in The Good Germans among Us at www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/14/4526

In August 2004 in New York City for a wedding, the first time back since the breaking of the Abu Ghraib story with its shocking photos and even more hideous reporting of what was taking place there, and the silence was stunning. No one brings up torture at weddings, but the running conversation at one table at the brunch on the following day was a bitter tirade on the government and the state of society, with a couple of very noticeable exceptions: there was not one word lost on the war in Iraq or Abu Ghraib. Ditto the following week in a lovely town just outside of Philadelphia. At a gathering given for the American residing abroad there was one question asked: Do they hate us over there? There was, however, plenty of arguing about if John Kerry was telling the truth about his service in Viet Nam. It seemed surreal to argue about someone's certified service in a war long over with no mention whatsoever of the present, ongoing war, or for that matter the lies it is based on. This point was brought up (gently) on the way to the airport. Wasn't it strange the torture of Abu Ghraib was never once mentioned? The reply was so simple and to the point: We were all so ashamed. End of the discussion.

Shame, powerful and intimate, lingers and nags. Sooner or later, one way or another, things come full circle. When we first married, it was my German husband who was confronted by his country's shame time and again. In Brooklyn to meet the in-laws in the early 70s, he was confronted with a shop owner who never wanted a German to enter her shop. A rather difficult family member decided to push the envelope and see what would happen when he got there. One very nice Jewish lady was forced into dealing with one much younger German very, very reluctantly. 'I don't like Germans, in fact I have never wanted anything to do with them,' she said, 'but you're nice. I like you.' Thereafter, they always made a point of greeting each other whenever he passed her shop. He understood her initial feelings and has always felt she was kind to him. Not everyone here who heard him tell this story agreed with his point of view. In fact, it was often the source of lively debates.

Just a few years ago consulting a doctor who had been the family doctor for years, I was confronted with him stating rather point blankly that he would have a very difficult time taking care of me unless he knew where I stood on the war in Iraq and with Bush's policies. He went on to say he had an American couple as patients and after telling them how he felt politically, they never returned. Why not, he asked. Are all Americans abroad in favor of his policies? Talk about being put on the spot. I recall stuttering of course not and neither do I. However, it didn't take long to realize he could no longer be our family doctor. The doctor was unprofessional, to say the least. Our government in Washington is beyond the word professional. There isn't anything left but us citizens to start getting things back on course.

Related Articles:
Spiegel Online Interview with Military Historian Gabriel Kolko on Many in the US Military think Bush and Cheney are Out of Control at www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,511492,00.html

Sun Sets Early on the American Century by Philip S. Golub at Le Monde Diplomatique at http://mondediplo.com/2007/10/04empire

2007-10-11T08:51:00.000+02:00

There has been another school shooting in America, in Ohio, my home state. It got me to wondering what the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution (the Bill of Rights) might look like in an unnamed count of years from now:

Tenth Amendment - Powers of states and people
~~The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.~~
(Only the President can issue signing statements.)

Ninth Amendment - Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights
~~The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.~~
(They could be terrorists.)

Eighth Amendment - Prohibition of excessive bail, as well as cruel and unusual punishment.
~~Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.~~
(They could be terrorists, they deserve what they get.)

Seventh Amendment - Civil trial by jury.
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
(Anyone declared a potential terrorist has no right to a civil trial.)

Sixth Amendment - Trial by jury and other rights of the accused.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
(Consumes vital time - they could be terrorists.)

Fifth Amendment - Due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, private property.
No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
(They could be terrorists.)

Fourth Amendment - Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
(They could be terrorists.)

Third Amendment - Protection from quartering of troops.
~~No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.~~
(Quartering of troops is an excellent way to cut housing costs for the military, give citizens an opportunity to show their patriotism, and stop terrorism in private homes.)

Second Amendment - Right to keep and bear arms.
A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
(One nation, under God, with Liberty and Justice for all. Amen.)

First Amendment - Freedom of religion, speech, press, and peaceable assembly as well as the right to petition the government.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
(They could be terrorists.)

2007-10-07T14:39:00.000+02:00

36 Hours in Hamburg with a lovely slide show Hamburg on the Water at http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/travel/07hours.html

2007-10-04T17:05:00.000+02:00

Seymour M. Hersh, one of the most famous investigative journalists in the US, was awarded the Blaetter Democracy Prize in Germany last week. Die Zeit printed a translated version of his speech The Fragility of Democracy last week.

Hersh: There is a disconnect -- of unprecedented significance -- between the American leadership and the press, the people, and the peoples of the world. .....I see my role as very basic: I believe a responsible journalist in Washington must hold the senior people of the government to the highest possible standard, and never relent in that view. We have a profound problem in American -- one that constantly works to the disadvantage of the loyal citizen. The Bushs and Kissingers and Nixons have the power to send our children -- our sons and daughters -- into war, to kill and be killed. As loyal citizens, we honor that power and willingly follow our leaders and send our young into war. And what do we get in return -- what have we learned to expect from our leaders? We get leaders who lie, misrepresent, distort and manipulate the facts. It's a very bad bargain, and one that should be challenged by every citizen and every journalist.

The original English version can be read at www.blaetter.de/demokratiepreis.php?beitrag=26.

2007-10-01T19:19:00.000+02:00

Reading about Germans in New York and their experience there is a bit like looking through several mirrors at different angles. In yesterday's NYT in Peter Applebome's Our Towns column about the difficulty one German woman encountered when she tried (in vain) to bring her 'energy-conscious sensibilities of life in Europe' into US supermarkets was sadly on target.

'When I was first here, I brought my own bags to the market, but they would stuff the groceries in the plastic bags anyway. Finally, I gave up, she said. People are very nice here. It's more relaxed. But the environmental thing is a little scary. ....When visitors come from Germany, they're baffled by the local customs, the tolerance of such stupendous, routine waste.' www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/nyregion/30towns.html

It certainly is far more relaxed over there, on one hand. You certainly don't have other customers breathing down your back while you load groceries onto the counter, have no chance of checking the prices and then pack it all up again on your own. Shopping is not a form of entertainment here, nor is it a time for small talk or chit-chat. It's a formal affair. You are greeted when entering and wished a nice day or weekend when leaving. To be fair they do start warming up (a bit) once they get to know you. However, the word 'service' or for that matter 'convenience' is not on the agenda here. Or, not on the agenda the way it is in the US. It's considered convenient or practical to bring your own bags when going shopping because it doesn't create even more waste and landfills. It is hardly a bother to bring them either. They tag along with your handbag and make you far more aware of how much you intend to buy. You learn to plan ahead since you very often have to pay for parking (at malls or downtown), and place a coin in for a shopping cart, as well as pay double or triple the price for gas. Credit cards are hardly used in daily transactions.

According to Applebome 'it is estimated that the United States goes through 100 billion plastic bags a year, which take an estimated 12 million barrels of oil to produce and last almost forever.' According to reports in one of today's papers oil may top $100 a barrel soon and there are a lot more people clamouring for more of it than 20 years ago. In today's Sueddeutsche Zeitung on page 3 there was a report on one US woman's fight to be able to hang her laundry out to dry in a community that doesn't allow it so that she can save using up even more energy with a dryer. Look up 'laundry lines' and it is surprising what's behind it all.

Canvas bags, in particular canvas book bags are particularly good for groceries and can be hung on shoulders making them appear less heavy. So much can be recycled and re-used as was noticed a few years ago during a strike of the sanitation department. It lasted a few weeks but it was hardly noticed.

2007-09-27T18:20:00.000+02:00

Disheartening news on voting from overseas: Most Overseas Ballots Not Cast or Counted at
www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/26/news/vote.php.

'A new federal survey has found that a scant one-third of the nearly one million absentee ballots requested for the US general election last year by overseas American civilians or active-duty service members were actually cast or counted, a result that one overseas voting advocate said felt like 'a dagger in the heart.' ....Laws vary from state to state and are applied unequally in local election offices. .....Just as state laws differ, so does handling of absentee ballots. Indiana and North Carolina reported that more than 40 percent of requested ballots were subsequently rejected; other states reported rejection rates of less than 3 percent.'

The article quotes Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat of the Overseas Vote Foundation: The single biggest motivator for a vote is that people think their vote will count. That's why this report is such a blow.'

2007-09-21T11:08:00.000+02:00

It takes time before things begin bubbling up to the surface. There is an eerie disconnect between having your ear on the ground, listening to people's experience and trying to find reports in the media. A year ago a US friend living here had to travel to the US for her daughter's wedding in Utah with her German husband. There wasn't all that much time to catch their connecting flight at JFK airport. Her husband has often been to the US, in fact they got married over there. Yet, for no reason at all when presenting his passport, suddenly without any explanation he was taken away and put into a 'holding pen'. Understandably she was very upset not only at the delay and perhaps not catching a late connecting flight for an early wedding the next day, but he has heart problems and suffers from anxiety. She found trying to ask questions, or explaining why it was important not to miss the flight was comparable to hitting a stone wall. Just in the knick of time he was released. The reason given was the finger printing machine at that counter was not functioning. These days one is probably elated to get an explanation for actions that in previous times would have been a source of outrage. Whatever happened to politeness, for example, simply stating our machine is out-of-order, please go to the next line? More to the point, whatever happened to putting out a welcoming mat? Is everyone these days subject to suspect?

There was an interesting, very complimentary article about Boston in a Berlin Sunday paper a few weeks ago. What stood out was in the column How to Get There. Right on top was the caution: cross your fingers and hope to get an immigration officer who is in a good mood upon entry. A German couple, both with Green Cards and who live permanently in Pennsylvania never travel back via JFK, but prefer Chicago because of how they are treated upon entry. If fact, they have drawn up a list of preferred airports.

The dollar has now hit 1.40 to the euro which should mean flights over to the US are now crammed with European tourists. Once upon a time it was everyone's dream here to travel over there. Yet a flight to and from Newark was only about half filled in May and June. Ditto for a flight to and from NYC in June. Comments sometimes heard run along the line of: be there, done that. Wait for better times.

Yesterday's IHT ran Welcome to America: Hope you're not in a rush at www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/18/business/entry.php. '...if foreigners had not visited the United States since Sept.11, 2001, or had never visited, the stories they're reading or hearing about the poor entry experience are discouraging them from visiting....'

2007-09-17T12:03:00.001+02:00

It's rather strange and peculiar how reputations stick like glue. American friends came to visit us in Hamburg this summer, finally after so many years of showing no interest in this city. They were very surprised at how lovely it is. One wrote afterwards that he had expected Hamburg to be grimy and grey. It is anything but that. John Powers in yesterday's Boston Globe sings its praises in Ignored by Most Americans, Hamburg Offers Great Culture and Beauty at www.boston.com/travel/articles/2007/09/16/beyond_the_red_lights/.

2007-09-16T11:10:00.000+02:00

The United States is one of the few countries that taxes its citizens irregardless of where they live and work. There is an exemption for foreign EARNED income. It's the word 'earned' one should not overlook here. The moment you are no longer 'earning' money, all income is taxed. For example, your pension or unemployment benefits will be considered taxable, irregardless of whatever might be in tax treaties between countries. The IRS has its own way of looking at things and they have little to no conception of what it means to be living abroad in, for example, high tax rate countries of the EU or for that matter, why any American would want to live outside the US. Should an American citizen decide to renounce his or her citizenship, it is usually taken for granted this move is being done to avoid taxation and thus they claim the right to demand taxes for up to ten years after this move. Ditto for anyone with a green card. Green card holders are supposed to pay US taxes whether or not they are residing in the US. As for the Alternative Minimum Tax, US citizens living abroad who are solidly middle class and not super rich by any means have been acquainted with this absurdity well before most US citizens residing at home knew it existed.

As usual the history behind all this shows just how short-sighted and ignorant of the world policy makers in Washington can be. Some time in the late fifties or early sixties, a few members of Congress became rather outraged that a few hardy US citizens roughing it out in the oil fields in the Middle East were not paying any income tax on their-- for that time -- rather high earnings. Never mind that those oil producing countries don't have any income tax, unlike the countries of Europe. Just throw all US citizens residing abroad for whatever reason into one boat. Become outraged that a few citizens are not paying taxes on income not at all earned in the US, but in jobs most likely beneficial to the US economy. Viola, taxation of US citizens abroad takes on a life of its own. Nor is there any attempt to correct past errors. Just the opposite. Now with budget deficits so high about once a year there are new attempts to raise our taxes.

Dollar's Retreat Raises Fear of Collapse at www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091407R.shtml:
'But the latest turmoil in mortgage markets has, in a single stroke, shaken faith in the resilience of American finance to a greater degree than even the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000 or the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, analysts said. It has also raised the prospect of a recession in the wider economy.'