A well worn path

Monday strikes again. I had to work so I didn´t have to sit around all day thinking about how I don´t have a job. Actually I do have a job, but I mean more like a real job. Whatever that is. I have never had one actually. A real job would consist of me doing something that is related to geography and the environment. Preferrably some kind of research. Of course in the world of jobs its all about who you know and as an immigrant, I don´t know anyone.

Lets put all that aside for a minute. Instead I think about the tea party in the US and Bill Maher´s condemnation of the whole movement. He makes the point that they really can´t talk about deficit reduction until they are willing to give up what is essentially the American Empire. If we can´t decide what to cut, but never tackle a standing army that is indeed to big when considered alongside what it is used, then we aren´t really proposing any real solutions. He noted, and I thought this part was quite good, that the defense industry is really a set of welfare payments. So then the question is what percentage of the military industrial complex (and I mean the whole shebang here) is republican and/or right wing? Maher also noted that the whole thing is geared to fight Russia back in the 70´s. Despite these words of wisdom I doubt the teabaggers will actually ever call for any reductions in this sector. Then what about NASA? Is getting a base on the moon or planting a flag on Mars really that important? Nope. If we want to reduce the budget, lets use the money where its needed and not on male sci-fi fantasies.

Here is hoping the weather is nice tomorrow because I can hear my skateboard on the other side of the room calling my name. No its not really calling my name. Inanimate objects don´t do such things, but all the same I have an itch to take it for a ride.

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Friday: or how to go through the motions

Lets begin with facts. The sun is shinning. The trees are in bloom. Its nearing the end of april and the summer is starting to break through here and there. In the parks the smell of grilled meat and charcoal smoke floats by occasionally amid the screams of running children on green grass and the silent areas where couples wrap themselves in blankets. The streets are unusually quiet for a Friday and its as if there is some holiday feeling over the whole city. We have left the facts behind. I am sad and don´t know why. The job hunt is getting to me. I know I should call the companies and places I have applied to but don´t want to. The fear of rejection? The sinking feeling of inadequacy sinking in to all my pores? Something like that.

Amid other things that are let downs these days: the Swedish National football team. Its hard to argue that anyone really deserves a place on that team these days. Everytime we play a nation that could be considered blueberry in quality we get a run for the money. Right now I am not at all convinced that we will be taking part in Euro 2012. A lot of people have to step up and reach another dimension of playing. I don´t see that happening. To continue the football line: Barcelona are two goals down in the semifinal of the Champions League. I am going to write them off now. Inter Milan with a genius in Mourinho is going to get to the final and there they are going to play an über-close game with Bayern that will be a toss up. It might even go to penalties. That is my prediction anyway. Enjoy the weekend.

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Skateboarding!

Its official. The sun is out and I don´t have to serve ice cream or bake pizzas today, so that can mean only two things. First I am working on further job applications (which even when I am doing nothing else, I am still working on) and secondly I am going to go skate at Hasenheide where I haven´t been in a week and a half. Just looking out the window at the bloomind trees, I know that that itch is slowly coming back.

In other news I finished Margaret Atwood´s sequel to Oryx and Crake titled The Year of the Flood. While its always extremely difficult to write a sequel to such an amazing book, I thought that she did pretty well in the end. Some of the story arcs seemed a bit simplified, but all in all it held a high standard and the ending was acceptable. Recommended though to get it you have to read the first one first.

Today is Market Day on the Maybachufer and I am wondering if I need anything at all today? The answer is probably no, now to the question of do I want anything. Well the answer to that doesn´t need to be stated literally. To everyone out there reading this: Enjoy a beautiful spring day.

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Delusions of Grandeur, mass fantasy, and the right wing

Its all the same thing. Yesterday Sarah went to Boston to give a little Tea Party speech near the site of the original event. Personally I am wondering whether she shook the dust off her feet when she left that liberal Mecca or whether it is now a sacred site of the right thanks to the election of Scott Brown (from whom much will expected....). In any case I took another thinker about the people and ideas that make up this right wing hate fest and thought I would talk about them a bit today.

Lets start with the socialism/fascism claims. I am constantly wondering where they get their evidence for this? To this day I still haven´t heard a decent argument for this, but that hasn´t stopped it being shouted from every pulpit they can find (and radio station, and fox news, etc.). I am therefore forced to conclude that these people are living in a giant bubble of fantasy. What they imagine in their head they conclude is also actually going on in the streets. This is the same affliction that many terminally ill homeless people suffer from.

Then there are the ideas about the constitution and lets go back to the constitution and it was better back then. To be honest they are practicioners of the Great American Religion. The first principle of the religion is that America is so special that it is unlike any other nation. When your worldview starts like this it invariably leads to the conclusion that all other nations are incomplete, bad, or even evil. The second principle of the religion is that the US can do nothing wrong on the world stage. The third principle is that American will only be great as long as its tied to some Randian view of capitalism and individuality. Going back to the constitution then is some kind of purification rite of the Great American Cult (cough, religion). The problem (one of many) with this view of America is that first it idealizes a kind of country that would look like The Andy Griffith Show and ignores the complicated real life that a constantly changing and dynamic nation faces. It also ignores history but that is for another post.

What I am trying to illustrate here is that the Tea Party, Fox News, and Sarah Palin are all living in a cocoon they built for themselves with a worldview that never really existed the way they wish it had. Tough shit, you lost the election, and this is the real life (its not black and white).

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Yoga Wednesdays

On wednesdays I do yoga. Its something I started with a little over a year ago. I had wanted to do it before but never had the courage to do it on my own. Enter Clara who wanted to do it as well and when we signed up for a course at the local community college (German VHS) we didn´t really know much about it. After a few weeks we were hooked. Now in the mornings I usually start my day by doing a few exercises. We do Iyengar yoga and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to be more flexible, add another dimension to their physical training, as well as learn something new.

Tomorrow is Thursday and if the weather finally gets a bit nicer, I am going to have a nice skate session. First though I have to hand deliver a job application I have been working on for a while now.

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Pots Damn

R. Gusarevs once took a bus ride to get to my wedding that involved him temporarily being on a street in Berlin called Waidmanslusterdam or something like that. Of course to the ear that is not so used to German, he sat up and thought Wild Mans Lust Damn! This of course led to a whole new level of sillyness in Berlin with all the different names of things (names that really mean very different things in english or can be perceived as meaning odd things). Lustgarten is another favorite. Anyway this weekend we had visitors from Sweden, Marie and Pekka Lindgren and we took them to the small city of Potsdam. Or as its known in this blog post Pots Damn.







































We also went to the Dutch Quarter which is an older part of the town that is good for walking around in and having a coffee. Went to a restaurant called the Flying Dutchman (rather cliche for a dutch restaurant). The food was what could be called average, but as the guests were far better than so it was still a nice time.
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Friday is Market Day

This blog has long suffered from a lack of photos detailing the happenings in Berlin. One reason is that I am shy about using the camera. Well no more, here are the days of point and click. Today is Friday and it is market day in my neighborhood. Turkish vegetable mongers fight for space among cheese sellers and licorice stands. Here are a few of the photos I took.









If the weather holds up i.e. no rain today, then I might even have a chance to get a little skate in. Here is hoping.

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Knee Slapper of the week

I didn´t really expect to follow up on the last post so quickly but apparently I am wrong (irony). So here is the first source. Of course this means that you have to believe the heritage foundation first of all. My question: Are you still a think tank if you leave out the thinking?

Two friends of mine are coming from Sweden and are staying till Sunday. Its going to be a fun week. Now its time to clean the house and have a little skate.

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Socialism is all you got

Its one of those mistakes I make over and over again: I read an article about anything that the President is doing and then when I am through with the article I scroll down to skim the comments. Here and there I find a few who agree, a few who disagree(at a constructive level), and then a bunch of comments about socialism taking over. Now I am going to go ahead and make the claim that anyone lobbing socialist at the current government is A.) unaware of what real socialism looks like and B.) have no understanding of the positions that the Republicans have taken in previous decades. On the issue of health care for instance the President´s plan, Obamacare, is the Republican idea from 1993. So the Republicans were socialists back then but now they are not. What about Romneycare? Hmm. I am going to take this a step further: if you want to keep screaming socialist thats fine, but at least be able to provide some kind of evidence for it evidence that doesn´t include Hannity/Rush said...

That the political debate on news websites has degenerated to this level is telling in many ways. It tells me that a lot of voters have no real idea of the political process or what government really does. It tells me they have no idea about American history and all the instances where government has failed to protect its citizens from con men who are out to take as much from everyone else as possible. The idea that less government is the golden goose is probably the most common religion that right wing groups share.

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monday, monday

I wanted to go skateboarding today. I woke up and looked toward the curtain covered window in hopes of being greeted by rays of sunlight glancing off the walls. Nope, it was overcast and what was worse, if I sat and listened to the cars rolling by I could hear the sound of tires on a wet street. Rain it was and rain it stayed until half an hour ago. I am hoping it stays sunny tomorrow and then I will take on Hasenheide skatepark.

Easter was so so. Don´t get me wrong the brunch was fun and the pesto quiche that I made was fantastic (could have used a bit more salt says the critical cook within me), but at the same time it wasn´t great because Clara was laying at home sick. She wasn´t on deaths doorstep or anything, but she wasn´t feeling good and that dragged the feeling down a few notches.

Tomorrow I will try to begin a new week day schedule. Get up between 7:30 and 8:00. Do yoga/short workout for twenty to thirty minutes. Breakfast. Write for half hour. Job search. Write applications. Have all this done by two o´clock in the afternoon. That is the goal anyway. If it happens or not is another thing.

To reading: I am halfway through Moby Dick right now and already I know which book I want to read next. I am going to read Margaret Atwood´s The Year of the flood. Anyway that is all for now, its just one of those slow Mondays.

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Easter Brunch: my contribution

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and therefore its Easter Brunch time. While its only the second time in Berlin that we are doing this its still a nice tradition. I am hoping the weather is going to be nice so we can sit outside and enjoy the weather and general mood of the city. Of course I have to work tomorrow evening but thats life when you have a restaurant job. Here is a picture of the Anders family contribution to the Easter Brunch. Hint: it includes pesto and no meat! While I don´t generally think its a good idea to bring something new to a party without having sampled it first, if you know what you are doing i.e. know how to make quiche and know how to use pesto, then this isn´t a problem. I am looking forward to the reactions.

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Market Day

Today is Tuesday and the street market around the corner from my house is in full swing by now. All the vendors are lined up with their various goods ranging from vegetables, grains, cheap clothing, and various regional specialties and cheeses. Sometimes there is nothing better than to take a stroll through before it gets to crowded, before the vegetable mongers yell their prices at you, and just take everything in. My personal favorites are the cheese stands, there are usually two and one of them specializes in Austrian Bergkäse, and then the Dutch Licorice stand. Oh, I should of course mention the italian stand with all the fresh pastas.

Today I have to go apply for new jobs. Not the kind of jobs I really want, but more the kind of jobs that I can actually obtain for the summer months: cafe work or kitchen assistant positions. Its not what I wanted to be doing at this point but it seems like it is the only answer at the moment. So then I´ll print out a few CV´s and be on my way. Maybe I will walk through the market as well.

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Health Care reform: morning thoughts

I don´t know at what time they voted. I was asleep at that point. I have no idea if there is a live stream where you can watch the voting process. I probably should have stayed up to watch it but I had a good feeling about it so I thought well I´ll sleep on it. We got it. After all these years and all this waiting, finally there is some real reform going on. Its not perfect and its not as far as it could be, but its a step in the right direction. I send out a sincere thank you to all the people who made this happen.

Now to the other side... I have been reading about the protests taking place outside the capital. At what point is it ok to call anyone a nigger or a faggot? I am not going to sit here and pretend that I didn´t believe these right wing tea partiers capable of this type of behavior, and the fact that it happened is just further proof of the kind of people that are involved in that movement. As for the republican media, claiming its socialism or communism or whatever their flavor of the month is: you are so blind, so ignorant, and beyond anything else so stupid that you don´t even know what those things are. To the Republican party: this is your chance to win over America. Go out there and tell the people how you want to make sure they are only a disease away from bankruptcy and that honestly you could care less about them. If you win a massive landslide in November it will be a sad day in a country that is actually starting to move forward again after stagnating for so long. I sincerely hope voters will see the truth about your party once and for all.

Anyways today is a day of celebration!

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Amid the waves and sun

I don´t know how to begin this. At times I struggle to fully realize my own thoughts and find that I fall back to the land of cliches. A land from where it is hard to recover one´s poise. I will try, I will struggle, I will let these thoughts loose, I will let them grow.

An island group. An isolated island group somewhere in the middle of the pacific. A population of natives with a very structured society. A society that put a great emphasis on their greatest resource: the ocean. A society that strove to be as close to the ocean and all its gifts as possible. Perhaps in this day of Avatar and Dances with Wolves there is nothing easier than to over-romanticize an indigenous group, to make them seem more enlightened than their evil conquerors, to make them seem closer to nature. I don´t deny this may be the case, but let me have this limb and we´ll see if it will hold the weight I place on it.

Once upon a time there was island people whose love for the sea was evident even to the first European eyes. Captain Cook noted in his notes that the Hawaiians rode waves on pieces of wood. Once upon a time there was an island people who didn´t have Christianity and to the Christian world this meant only one thing: they were in need of missionaries. Indeed the missionaries came and they even fought amongst themselves to the point that the catholic priests were persecuted under instructions from the calvinist missionaries. At this point we have not even arrived at the lowest point of this story. The missionaries could not leave the people as they were. The missionaries felt the Hawaiians were lazy and so they did everything they could to destroy their ocean loving culture. They discouraged them from surfing the waves, an action that had kept them healthy and fit. They did what they thought would be good for them: tried to turn them into images of protestantism. Then the United States took its first step towards becoming an empire and seized the islands. This was only the beginning of the decline.

Amid all the chaos, there were those who clung to the old ways and despite the influx of outsiders, the dietary changes that wreaked havoc on the native population, and the colonialism that took place they kept the old traditions around. The person whose name is most evoked for bringing back the art of surfing is Duke Kahanamoku and perhaps it was his simple love of the ocean that helped most in the revival. There were many others of course who struggled to bring back to the islands what the people had lost and I will say from my visit that there is still have a long way to go to restore all that was lost. All my respect goes out to those men and women who love those islands and are trying to restore the ecosystems and culture.

Big Week and Champions League

Given the current situation in the United States, I will be willing to say that Obama´s presidency and the Democratic party are both at stake over health care. They are gambling with high stakes, but if they want to get something done then this is how it has to be. The Republicans are trying to frame a vote for health care as political suicide. They are hopefully smarter than to really believe that. It is important to remember to beware of friendly republicans offering advice. I have talked about health care reform a lot on this blog. Its an issue that I care a lot about, an issue that is too big to be ignored the way the republican party will do if they win this one. Any democrat who doesn´t vote for this bill will lose my vote. I will instead vote for the green party if this bill is dropped. To any lawmakers reading this, as unlikely as that is, it is better to be voted out for doing something(and something important at that) than to be voted out for being a coward(in hopes of saving your seat) and enforcing an awful status quo.

This week is Champions League again and its going to be a glorious two days. Tonight I will try to watch Chelsea take on Inter Milan in London. The Germans are all supporting Chelsea due to the fact that their national team captain plays for them. I do like Inter Milan´s coach Jose Mourinho, but all the same I give Chelsea the win on this one and the progression to the next round. On Wednesday Barcelona hosts Stuttgart and I don´t really have to explain who the Germans are going to be cheering for in this case. My head tells me Barcelona wins and I would like that, but Stuttgart haven´t come this far only to back down. It could be a close one. My hope though is that Ibrahimovic gets it together and has a masterful game. It would be fun to see him back in his fall form once again.

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and here comes Monday

It was a nice little weekend if I do say so myself. I managed to not read too much news, and spent my time doing things that are more fun. Such as watching Bundesliga and the last two movies of Stieg Larsson´s Millenium trilogy. Good stuff. Now its Monday again and while I did work five hours last night in pure madness at a swing concert in a pizzeria, I am feeling ready to go.

About the swing concert. The band playing was Old Fish and the location was Ron Telesky Canadian Pizza. I have never seen a venue so packed in my life and people were still outside trying to get in. We had to stop baking during the bands sets, but that didn´t matter because during the breaks everyone was consuming massive amounts of beer. The experience of working there reminds me more and more of Fatih Akin´s amazing 2010 film Soul Kitchen. I love it!

To other things...

Paul Ryan, the new posterboy for the GOP, has his ideas cut to ribbons by the CBO and its not pretty. Nor is the fact that the republican parties "new ideas" are just going to increase the deficit. Lovely, but oh wait aren´t they the party that got us here in the first place. Another Randite bites the dust.

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Random Honeymoon Photos

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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Making Change Happen

During my no-so-far-back-days in grad school I had this class that I really didn´t like. It was called Make Change Happen, and while its easy to dislike hard classes, this one was supposed to be more practical. The goal was to come up with a project that would change the world in some way: it could be at the local level or it could reach higher than that. My teammate for this project was already eyeing a thesis on building codes in Sweden and so since she already had some knowledge on the topic, we took on the building codes in Lund County, Sweden. We submitted a citizen´s proposal complete with our reasons and a social theory background drawing on Rawlsian concepts of inter-generational justice. Our proposal passed. Granted the green party came up with a better idea that would have been more rigid, and which both my teammate and I would have preferred. We didn´t let that bother us so much because we had gotten something done. We had made that change even if it was just a baby step in a certain direction.

Health care reform in the United States. Its not the bill I want, but if I was in the house of representatives, I would vote for it. A baby step in the right direction is better than a status quo that hurts a lot of people. As for people being against it I have two things to say about that: a. do they really know that much about it (who are their sources?) and b. even if people aren´t gung-ho about something does not mean we shouldn´t improve on something that desperately needs it.

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Sunday Thoughts: Politics to Swedish National Football Team

Sunday, Sunday in Berlin. The sun was there to greet me this morning and then by lunch time it had hidden itself behind the cloud ceiling that is the ever present reminder that winter is not quite gone yet. I am thinking about things. Some things, and most certainly not all things.

Terrorist trials. In the US there is some strange idea that the terrorists should not be tried in civilian courts as this may somehow lead to them being found innocent. Does the US government not have enough evidence to convict them? What does that say about all the money spent on these wars so far? Have these same courts not convicted terrorists, both foreign and domestic, in the past? I am guessing that the alternative option is to try the "terrorists" in some kind of military tribunal that has yet to be fully legalized? Apparently the great United States has some kind of court system that is inadequate for justice to be served. What does this mean for conservatives who are so quick to defend all parts of the US? Does a military tribunal guarantee an automatic conviction? If such is the case, then how is justice being served. I thought the US was supposed to be better than these scummy terrorists.

Liz Cheney and her father are the worst things to happen to the world since McCarthy and his witch hunts. Remember how many lives that ruined in a "free" country where people were supposed to be able to believe what they wanted? These are two pathetic people being given too much attention. Keep America Safe sounds like some neo-fascist organization that even Orwell would have had trouble coming up with. Sometimes I imagine that humans learn from history and that we improve throughout the centuries. What I am learning is that this is not the case, human stupidity is unchanged by technology and by those who yearn to improve the world. Have a look around and smell the stupidity in the air: its growing.

Sometimes I get too into football. I begin to hope that the Swedish National Team will recapture its far gone glory days. The last couple of friendlies has proved the complete opposite: we have a bunch of players with limited talent who don´t seem to know how to play with heart. I know that could be harsh but that is my observation. There are lots of national teams that play only with heart, where the players realize that they only get a few chances to suceed in that environment and they take every chance seriously. Sweden on the other hand looks like a bunch of overpaid athletes continuosly underperforming. Well that is my Sunday.

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