Thursdays

I just finished Günter Grass´novel My Century and while I cannot say that it is one of his better works, I would say that it was worth the read for anyone interested in German history. Its a bit fiction and a bit history as every year of the 20th century is essentially two to three pages in a voice of someone who explains what they see as the biggest event and how they experienced it. My favorite is the professor explaining to his class about the student revolt of 1968 and about "that writer with the walrus mustache who´d sold out to the Social Democrats." Living in Berlin of course makes one painfully aware of 68 for the most obvious reason that Dutschke was active and assasinated here.

Sometimes it becomes easy to walk through Berlin and be deluded by the festive atmosphere and forget all the things that have taken place here. Some good, some awful. Many of those who became martyr´s for different causes have their names on streets here such Rosa-Luxembourg str. or Rudi Dutschke str. Or how about the protests against the shah a few years before 68 when the police stood by and watched the pro-Iranians beat the leftists with wooden sticks. Times have changed haven´t they?

I am trying to write a paper about my thoughts after reading Rand´s Atlas Shrugged, but that is difficult because while time has marched on and the vision she had has never materialized, it remains difficult to determine how she would respond to the world as it is today. I am also working on applications for jobs. There is nothing worse than writing job applications.

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