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Directories
In the news
Yesterday in Berlin, at the opening of Lehrter Hauptbahnhof, now the biggest train station in Europe, a 16 year old boy ran through the crowd stabbing 28 people. It’s now known that one of the first people he stabbed was HIV+. There is no word yet on why he did it.
Germany is preparing to host the Soccer World Cup in 2 weeks. Rainer predicts a Germany-UK final with Germany winning. If this happens, I’ll root for the UK. The US has a tough first round draw, hopefully our guys can pull through.
And a bunch of Finnish hard rock monsters won the Eurovision song contest.
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Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
I finally finished this book and boy, I definitely won’t be reading Trail of Tears. I’m more depressed now than in 2003 when the Iraq war started up and I had to avoid all sources of news for a week. It got a little better towards the end when there were a small minority of people actually fighting for Indian rights, but in the middle of the book when it was just injustice followed by massacre followed by injustice, I was in deep despair, thinking, “What’s the point? Humanity is doomed. ” Now, at least, I am coming away with the idea that there are a few people out there who can identify (and are willing to stand up for) what’s right. Okay, I’m about to go off on greed and industrialized nations… I… must… STAY… POSITIVE!
Next on my reading list: Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh, which is supposed to include a section on letting go of anger between citizens and governments, something I do need help with right now.
“I thought God intended us to live, but I was mistaken. God intends to give the country to the white people, and we are to die. It may be well; it may be well.” - Standing Bear of the Poncas to General George Crook
Friday’s Larry King Live
A rerun of the previous day’s Larry King Live is shown every morning here on CNN International at 11am. It’s now 1pm and I’m still angry and dismayed by last night’s show [click here for transcript].
Last night’s show involved two liberal talk show hosts debating two conservative talk show hosts about today’s hot topics. After being a conservative most of my life, I am CLEARLY now a liberal.
Topic 1: IMMIGRATION
I don’t get how so many Americans can be against opening up immigration when I’d say 99% of us are immigrants. I don’t remember reading anything about the native American peoples getting any say in whether all these white people could show up. In fact, many welcomed the new immigrants. And what did the white people do? Took their land and exterminated them. The immigrants coming in now just want to get a job that no American would do for pay that no American would bother getting out of bed for.
BEN FERGUSON, HOST, “THE BEN FERGUSON SHOW”: And most Americans are going, “Look, you fly the Mexican flag. You change our national anthem. You sing it in Spanish, not English, and now you want us to give you citizenship?” I don’t think it’s going to fly.
Most Americans think this? Is flying the flag of your nation of birth threatening this country? I mean, they are living in the US now. Should immigrants not hold on to a little of their culture? I know quite a few people who are extremely proud of being 4th generation Irish immigrants. You’re in America… you’re an American… why the heck should other Americans be forced to wear green on St. Patty’s Day or face being pinched?
Well, we better get rid of all those Little Italys, Greektowns, Chinatowns, Little Koreas, etc… you know, those places that are fun to go to because you can get a little taste of a different culture.
DENNIS PRAGER, “THE DENNIS PRAGER SHOW”: I think most Americans even liberals believe it’s time to build a fence.
Exactly, that definitely would have stopped the 9-11 bombers. Oops, wait, they got in on student visas didn’t they? Well, it’ll stop most illegal immigration. What? You mean most illegal immigrants overstay their tourist visas. Oh…
You know, instead of spending money on a big giant wall, maybe we could properly outfit the troops in Iraq instead. Just an idea.
Topic 2: War on Terrorism and the NSA
PRAGER: If I were president, I would have made the case virtually every day of my administration that we are fighting the greatest evil since World War II… That this is this generation’s form of Nazism. The president, however, felt that it was so obvious that we’re fighting extremely evil people that he didn’t have to make it, and he can go on to things like responsible Social Security reform. He made a mistake. He made a political mistake. He should have been making the case for this war… It can still be made. It is an evil. It’s interesting. I’d like to ask my two liberal colleagues there one question. And I’m not asking you to support the war or anything. I just want to know if you’re prepared to say — I swear it’s not a trick question. It’s just to understand your view. Would you say that by and large the people that we are fighting in Iraq are evil? RHODES: No. They’re Iraqis, and we occupy their country. PRAGER: OK. OK. There you go, folks. RHODES: There’s a civil war going on. PRAGER: That is what the left believes. We are not fighting evil.
Oh no, not again with the evil-do-ers. Let’s get our bibles and throw them at the insurgents.
These are the same stupid arguments that people were making for the eradication of the American Indians when those savages were standing up against Americans for taking their land and not giving them anything good in return.
And in the end…
Finally, here are some excerpts from the chapter that I’ve just read in Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, describing the behavior of General Hancock. After Hancock ordered the Indian chiefs and warriors to immediately bring their wives and children to his fort, which they refused to do, saying (with good reason) that their families were afraid of his soldiers, he ordered all their belongings (clothes, utensils, weapons, buffalo skins, and lodgings) burned:
“General Hancock’s expedition, I regret to say, has resulted in no good, but, on the contrary, has been productive of much evil,” wrote Superintendent of Indian Affairs Thomas Murphy to Commissioner Taylor in Washington.
“The operations of General Hancock,” Black Whiskers Sanborn informed the Secretary of the Interior, “have been so disastrous to the public interests, and at the same time seem to me to be so inhuman, that I deem it proper to communicate my views to you on the subject… For a mighty nation like us to be carrying on a war with a few straggling nomads, under such circumstances, is a spectacle most humiliating, an injustice unparalleled, a national crime most revolting, that must, sooner or later, bring down upon us or our posterity the judgment of Heaven.”
The Great Warrior Sherman took a different view in his report to Secretary of War Stanton: “My opinion is, if fifty Indians are allowed to remain between the Arkansas and the Platte we will have to guard every stage station, every train, and all railroad working parties. In other words, fifty hostile Indians will checkmate three thousand soldiers. Rather get them out as soon as possible, and it makes little difference whether they be coaxed out by Indian commissioners or killed.”
Early morning fun
Two old biker guys rang my bell this morning to tell me they’d be working on the house. I wonder if these guys worked for the complex or if they were just doing something for one of the residents here in the building? Anyway, they put a ladder up in my yard and were installing stuff on the ledges of the 4th floor apartment to keep birds off… while wearing leather pants and bandannas… the whole biker regalia. Strange. They spoke with very thick accents, so I just pretended I didn’t speak German because it was difficult to understand them and they had gotten me out of bed at 7:30am, which is too early for me to think very clearly (especially since my mom called me at 5am this morning to chat - after 4 years you’d think she’d figure out the time difference). I did overhear one say to the other that from his bark, they expected my dog would be bigger. Charlie’s 110 pounds. What the heck kind of dog were they expecting? A Mastiff?
I must have slept wrong because I can’t turn my head to the right today. I hate when that happens.
On one of the German news shows this afternoon, the problem of websites that advise people on how to be properly anorexic was discussed, the German government can’t do anything more against it than the American, freedom of information and all. And Chancellor Merkel is being criticized for “flirting” with George Bush (ie, being too friendly to his policies).
I’m reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee right now, which is making me feel very ashamed to be an American. White people were/are greedy bastards. I mean, nothing has really changed, it’s might makes right and now that Whitey has mined all the gold and gotten tired of his ranches, he wants oil to make his Hummer go vroom. It really amazes me that there were so many people that were for the extermination of Native Americans. The book discusses angry villagers throwing stones at Indian women and children. And that the crowd in one town tore an Indian baby from it’s mother’s arms and beat it to death. Probably some of my ancestors were involved in that kind of behavior, some of them were in the midwest in the mid-1800’s. Depressing what people can convince themselves is morally justified.
Dead bunny
This afternoon, I discovered a dead bunny rabbit in the grass opposite our apartment. Not a wild rabbit, but clearly a young pet bunny. Poor guy. I hope it wasn’t some idiot who decided they didn’t want the bunny anymore and just set it loose. People should know that pet bunnies are not at all equiped to survive in the wild. But it would also suck if it got carried off from someone’s garden by a predator.
I miss my bunnies. And I have been on the verge of a migraine all day.
My open letter to the meat-leaver has gotten me a lot of attention. I was out front gardening with Charlie all day yesterday and I don’t think I’ve ever talked to so many German’s in one day. One woman, Martina Thiele, asked if she could come over for coffee and cake one day (the German version of afternoon tea), so maybe I’ll be making a friend. This keeps happening right before we get ready to move away from a place. I started hanging out with Sabine in Rostock just before moving to Potsdam, and now we are looking to move sometime in the fall to wherever Rainer’s new job will be (at this point, our choice is between Leipzig and Regensburg).
Pet news
Rainer’s bunny allergies finally became too bad and we took Franklin and Grumpy to the animal shelter today. Germany doesn’t euthanize and the lady there said that several people had been by recently asking about rabbits and Grumpy and Franklin are the only ones they have now. Hopefully they won’t split them up—I forgot to ask about that, but I guess they would keep them together, right? I hope they get a good home where they can run around like crazy guys. I feel bad, but we were having to keep them shut up all the time, and that made me feel a lot worse.
The rotten meat leaver is back and left a gift of a rotten bone and two pieces of sausage in our front garden this week. I’m finally fed up and posted a letter to him/her on our bushes telling him that Charlie is trained not to eat food off the street and reminding him/her that there is a playground next to our apartment and that the kids walk along the path in front of our door to get there and could very easily see a piece of sausage and stick it in their mouth before a parent could react. Hopefully this note gets the message across. How do you deal with this kind of person? If you’ve got a problem with me, talk to me, don’t leave rotten meat all over my yard and don’t take your anger out on my dog! Argh!
Rainer had a fed-up-with-East-Germans moment tonight. He let Charlie off the leash over by the woods and two joggers approached. Rainer made the (in my opinion) bad decision not to put Charlie back on the leash, and Charlie went to greet them (in my understanding, he didn’t jump on them, just ran over wagging his tail) and they started yelling at Rainer. Rainer apologized, but they kept yelling, and kept yelling, and kept on yelling some more. When they were finally done, two people on a nearby balcony had to continue yelling at Rainer. I’m a little torn about this, since there is this mad, possible-dog-poisoner around, I feel we should be EXTRA considerate when it comes to our dog, but there is no need to yell for extended periods of time. Rainer’s annoyed and doesn’t understand the need of East German’s to give lectures if they see you do anything wrong. He says people are a lot different where he grew up (near the Mosel Valley), I guess over there they just state their problem once, then get on with their lives.
I am, in general, fed up with the behavior of people around here. I feel strongly about being considerate of other people and always take into account that other people have feelings and have had different formative experiences than me. It just seems that people around here are very angry and need to take this out on anyone who stumbles into their path and I don’t know how to deal with this. How do you best diffuse someone in this situation? Do you just shut up and walk away, or apologize for your perceived infraction? (These have been my reactions thus far) Or do you tell them to shut up and mind their own business (something I’m starting to think they must do to each other)? Do you thank them for their lecture? What? I searched the internet for an article on what to do to stop an anonymous person from trying to poison your dog, but there didn’t seem to be anything. Is the only solution moving? I’m not worried about Charlie’s health anymore, he won’t eat the stuff, but finding and cleaning up rotten meat every two to three days is seriously getting on my nerves.
My “being considerate” thing is also apparently an “American” thing. While visiting Regensburg the other week, I hung out with another American, Joan, who was worried that her kids were making too much noise and a German lady told her not to worry, if someone is annoyed, it’s their problem, not hers. The person moved to the neighborhood knowing that there are families with kids also living there, so they shouldn’t expect peaceful silence, even at 6am. She also asked her husband to move the coffee grinder to the other side of the kitchen, since the next door neighbor’s bedroom was on the other side of the wall from where it is currently standing and he told her to stop being ridiculous. I don’t get this, moving the coffee grinder does not inconvenience him in any way, but it does bother the guy who’s sleeping next door. Hmph… culture clash…
I’m always pulling Rainer out of the way of other people (on sidewalks, in shops, etc) which really annoys him. It seems in Germany, the appropriate behavior is to stand wherever the heck you want and the other people need to negotiate a way around you if they so desire. Or to extrapolate, do whatever you want and everyone else just needs to deal with it, which does not fit so well with the whole lecturing-thing they have here in East Germany, so I’m just one big ball of confusion.
What’s in a name?
Yesterday, the news here was reporting (apart from the immigration protests) that there is a backlash in the US against SUVs. Is there really? I just got back a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t notice anything. They played some dippy (and yet so true) country song about SUV drivers being 90 pound soccer moms with a diet coke in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Maybe it was just another opportunity to make fun of Americans.
Pearl Jam is playing here in September and the concert was already sold out by the time I got around to looking for tickets (4 days after they went up for sale). Bah humbug!
Charlie was depressed when we first got back. I guess hanging out with Rainer and I is not as much fun as being in my mom’s house with it’s large yard, two dogs, and 7 residents- although he isn’t eating either, so we suspect someone was also sneaking him snacks there *cough* my aunt Dang *cough cough*
Germany now has a version of Dancing with the Stars. There is some woman on there who was a politician. Rainer told me what she did, but I don’t remember right now. Anyways, I didn’t know any of the celebrities on it and the costumes are horrific. I haven’t seen the American version, but I really hope the costumes aren’t that appalling.
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