Ok, so I haven't written for a while, and even when I have written it's been a bit half-assed. Sorry. But as I mentioned before, usually when I don't write it doesn't mean that nothing is happening, instead it means that LOTS is happening. And this is once again the case.
1) I've started my praktikum! It's fantastic...laid back but fun work, good practice, nice people, challenging but not too challenging. I'm planning a sustainable mobility festival, working on the bike campaign and working on another event for kids and public transit. I'm still getting adjusted to waking up early every day, but it's really nice to have a schedule.
2) The Steelers won the Superbowl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm still a bit in shock that they FINALLY win and I'm in Germany. But it was a pretty fantastic/unique experience nonetheless. I had a party and then watched the game and a packed bar in the company of some real live pittsburghers and the world's best freshly minted polish-german steelers fan there is. More on this character later... Needless to say, going to work the next day on two hours of sleep was no cake walk, and I found it rather laughable that the pittsburgh school children got two hour delays but got nothing for watching a superbowl that BEGAN at midnight. I really think the consulate should have granted us some sort of amnesty.
3) Right. So I don't really know the etiquitte for introducing someone to my blog-reading public who I know is also reading this. Hmmmm. Damn it, why does he have to speak such good english? Maybe the best way is with a large dose of sarcasm. So there's this guy. His name is Artur and we hang out every now and then (HA) get along alright (HA HA) and sometimes have fun together (HA HA HA) and he was a terrible steelers fan (HA HA HA HA). Ok, those are pretty much all lies. We hang out a ridiculous amount, get along fantastically, have fun doing the most inane of things and he is the best non-pittburgher-steelers fan i've ever seen. And he made a terrible towel written in polish. These are the things that charm me, folks, taking notes? ;-)
So the last week has been pretty much comprised of working and hanging out with Artur, with a shockingly small amount of time logged at my host family's house, much to my and my host mother's regret, so that's why i'm sitting at the kitchen table right now writing in my blog... hmmm....
Oh, and yesterday my watch battery ran out, causing me to think it was an hour earlier than it was, miss my train, and marvel at the fact that i've had a watch for so long without losing it that it needs a new battery. I'm growing up! ;-)
Thursday, February 9, 2006
among the appalling
Censoring Truth
New York Times February 9, 2006
The Bush administration long ago secured a special place in history for the audacity with which it manipulates science to suit its political ends. But it set a new standard of cynicism when it allowed NASA's leading authority on global warming to be mugged by a 24-year-old presidential appointee who, quite apart from having no training on that issue, had inflated his résumé.
In early December, James Hansen, the space agency's top climate specialist, called for accelerated efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming. After his speech, he told Andrew C. Revkin of The Times, he was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for aggressive action.
This was not the first time Dr. Hansen had been rebuked by the Bush team, which has spent the better part of five years avoiding the issue of global warming. It was merely one piece of a larger pattern of deception and denial.
The administration has sought to influence the policy debate by muzzling the people who disagree with it or — as was the case with two major reports from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and 2003 — editing out inconvenient truths or censoring them entirely.
In this case, the censor was George Deutsch, a functionary in NASA's public affairs office whose chief credential appears to have been his service with President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee. On his résumé, Mr. Deutsch claimed a 2003 bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas A&M, but the university, alerted by a blogger, said that was not true. Mr. Deutsch has now resigned.
The shocker was not NASA's failure to vet Mr. Deutsch's credentials, but that this young politico with no qualifications was able to impose his ideology on other agency employees. At one point, he told a Web designer to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang.
As Dr. Hansen observed, Mr. Deutsch was only a "bit player" in the administration's dishonest game of politicizing science on issues like warming, birth control, forest policy and clean air. This from a president who promised in his State of the Union address to improve American competitiveness by spending more on science.
CREDIT AND ALL THAT JAZZ: NEW YORK TIMES INC.
New York Times February 9, 2006
The Bush administration long ago secured a special place in history for the audacity with which it manipulates science to suit its political ends. But it set a new standard of cynicism when it allowed NASA's leading authority on global warming to be mugged by a 24-year-old presidential appointee who, quite apart from having no training on that issue, had inflated his résumé.
In early December, James Hansen, the space agency's top climate specialist, called for accelerated efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming. After his speech, he told Andrew C. Revkin of The Times, he was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for aggressive action.
This was not the first time Dr. Hansen had been rebuked by the Bush team, which has spent the better part of five years avoiding the issue of global warming. It was merely one piece of a larger pattern of deception and denial.
The administration has sought to influence the policy debate by muzzling the people who disagree with it or — as was the case with two major reports from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and 2003 — editing out inconvenient truths or censoring them entirely.
In this case, the censor was George Deutsch, a functionary in NASA's public affairs office whose chief credential appears to have been his service with President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee. On his résumé, Mr. Deutsch claimed a 2003 bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas A&M, but the university, alerted by a blogger, said that was not true. Mr. Deutsch has now resigned.
The shocker was not NASA's failure to vet Mr. Deutsch's credentials, but that this young politico with no qualifications was able to impose his ideology on other agency employees. At one point, he told a Web designer to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang.
As Dr. Hansen observed, Mr. Deutsch was only a "bit player" in the administration's dishonest game of politicizing science on issues like warming, birth control, forest policy and clean air. This from a president who promised in his State of the Union address to improve American competitiveness by spending more on science.
CREDIT AND ALL THAT JAZZ: NEW YORK TIMES INC.
Saturday, February 4, 2006
Friday, February 3, 2006
Smiling Alone
If there's one book that was referenced more than any other during my career as a polical science student at Northwestern, it was most certainly Robert Putnam's „Bowling Alone“, a theory-based case study of American society and the recent decline of „social capital“ which exists in the form of social organizations, PTAs, quilting societies and...bowling nights. The idea is that the more people hung out, the more social ties they had, and these social ties functioned as a sort of currency...they could find jobs more easily, had help in times of need, were happier, healthier, and generally „richer.“
Really the only reason I've been thinking about this book is because the phrase „Smiling Alone“ has been running through my head because, well, that's what I've been doing (more explanation soon) and, well, it sounds like the book title. But as I think about it more and more, I realize that Putnam's description of the lone bowler in a nearly empty neighborhood bowling alley as a well-adapted metaphor for much of my lonesome smiling activities. Engaging in an activity that's usually done in the presence of others, where continual smiling/bowling is supported by the group, where laughing and cheering is encouraged, group bowling/smiling is even a good first date activity!...the big difference is that bowling is a lot louder and requires a lot more skill. But wait, smiling alone is more infectious, more a cause of general cheer than that lonesome bowler. At least in my experience...
The number one cause of solitary simpering, at least in my case, is the presence of cute, goofy, funny-looking, sleeping, or even completely normal looking dogs or babies on the train. The subway is just such an apersonal atmosphere, but the dogs and babies don't know the rules yet! They stare you down, lick your feet, giggle, eat things off the subway floor, and generally break all the (oh so german) rules of subway personal-space etiquitte. Another related cause is people making faces, jingling keys, talking to, babywaving, petting, playing with or otherwise communicating with these furry/juvenile creaturtes, especially when the respective parents/owners don't seem very happy about it. Also related to the baby theme, especially grin-provoking are small children using what to me seem like absurdly complicated grammatical structures: seperable prefix verbs, subjunctive clauses, genitive possession, all in German! The mother toungue is a marvelous thing.
And then there are those instances that are just too notable to not react to. Those times where you think, I wish there was someone else here who could understand the irony/absurdity/hilarity/tragedy of this situation. There was the time that I found myself with my entire unterwasserhockey equipment, most notably with my flippers and snorkel poking out of my bag, sitting next to a man carrying his surfboard on the subway, in January. There was the man in complete bavarian dress talking on a payphone in Marienplatz. And then there are the people who make you smile because you're making up stories about them in your head to try to understand their behavior, like maybe the crazy businessman who threw the entire contents of his briefcase into the fish fountain and slowly watched them sink just gave up all his worldly possessions and is moving to the Canary Islands. And then there are the little things: funny advertisements, silly hats, people speaking english next to me who think i can't understand, cool houses, views of the alps, congregations of birds floating on lake starnberg, sunrises, sunsets, perfect songs, and of course, there's the smiling alone that comes from thinking of a particularly sappy romantic moment that gets you smiling inspite of yourself.
All I can say is, smiling alone turns out to be an excellent solitary activity, but you won't find me in a bowling alley without at least a couple of other people, namely so no one notices that i only use the 8 pound balls... Mini golf however, I might be able to tolerate solo. Now, i'm off to listen to some Lyle Lovett...
This calls for some blatantly teenagerey internet behavior:
:-) ;-) =) :-P
there, now i'm not alone :-D
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
