Saturday Brunch and a Few Minutes with Antifa

This morning I met up with one of my aunts, who's visiting Berlin, in the northeast of the city. Going there on my bicycle, it wasn't exactly fun to ride streets seemingly designed for narrow 18th-century carriage traffic, with cobblestones and dangerous tram tracks, large delivery vans and car drivers with a need for speed, from a road safety perspective. But on the whole I enjoyed the journey, since I don't otherwise get out to that neighbourhood much anymore and of course I was looking forward to the meet-up.

The two of us had tea, quiche and cake together and talked. And then we strolled out for an ice cream. The streets were peaceful considering that the area is a hipster mecca; we did not have to wait in line with fifty (I exaggerate slightly) families for our gelato, which is often enough the case in Berlin. The cloudy weather likely explained it!

It is a relief that rain is forecast again, because the winter has not been as wet as it should have been. I use an app that tracks Berlin's city trees. Since it's geared up again at the beginning of March (when the trees awake from hibernation) it shows that the past month's rainfall has been ~15.5% of what it should be. That said, the street water pump in the neighbourhood was not yet spouting out any water when I checked it earlier this week, so I haven't been able to start supplying 'my' trees with groundwater again. I could use water left over from rinsing vegetables at home, but since tree roots apparently grow deeper and better if given at least 40 litres at once, I think it would take a week (and a lot of forbearance on my mother's side) to gather the right amount.

I was caught up in an anti-fascist protest on my way home. A huge contingent of police vans had been dispersed in flotillas around the general area. Riot police officers had even been shipped in from Bavaria (their black uniforms had the telltale abbreviation "BY" on the backs) to help the Berlin authorities deal with a plethora of demonstrations. The counter-protest I was caught up in was inspired by a march of a neo-Nazi party. Judging by the speaker whose message was being amplified from a vehicle at the rear of the neo-Nazis, the marchers felt that their freedom of speech was being infringed upon and that the mainstream political parties were no good. I wasn't sure if this allegation of censorship was a reference to the government recently shutting down a publishing house that reprinted the 'greatest hits' of the Nazi era without context or comment.

Riot police on foot and the police vans didn't just surround the march. Eventually one group of officers put on their helmets (generally an indication that things are getting heated) while others performed an uncomfortable trot to keep up with the moving crowd of counter-protestors.

These counter-protestors were mostly, I judged, at least a decade younger than me, so not unlike my classmates at university. One held out a black Antifa flag with logo where the neo-Nazis would see it at the front of the crowd, but most carried neither signs nor flags. Many others clapped their hands, raised their arms, and chanted 'Siamo tutti antifascisti!' To vary the programme, they sometimes chanted "Nazis raus!", and two or three at the front of the crowd silently held up both middle fingers, while another tooted a horn to try to drown out the rightwing protest's messages. A few had muffled their mouths with scarves, a few wore black FFP2 face masks, and one young person wore a keffiyeh around their neck. As a protestor came to stand on the bollard right beside me, I presumed that nobody minded my incongruous presence in a business-casual wool skirt, tights, baby-blue knit sweater, and flowered pink silk scarf.

Eventually the police blocked the counter-protest's progress entirely, perhaps because the street narrowed past this point? The fun was essentially over. I went up to the front of the crowd, explained that I lived in street X, and asked if there'd be any way of getting through within the next 10 minutes. An officer answered, through her face shield, 'Vorerst geht nichts mehr.'

So I took a detour home, feeling a little guilty that I'd enjoyed myself so much when the subject matter of the protests had been serious.

Fortunately the rest of the journey was uneventful. The evening news mentioned that, like other protests in Berlin today, these protests' turnout had been lower than projected. There were no gruesome tales to be told.

Daffodils, Databases and Dates

It's beginning to be spring: the daffodil, leek, and arugula leaves on my windowsill have begun to sprout, and not only the hazel and alder catkins but also the earliest yellow Oregon grape blossoms, crocuses in yellow but also purple and blue, chionodoxa and faded-looking late white snowdrops are out. In front of City Hall, a cluster of daffodil flowers looked ready to burst out of its buds this afternoon.

I successfully finished my Excel course at university, and my holidays will thenceforth be unalloyed until April 13th! We spent the last week finishing an Excel project, which was a slog because I didn't save back-up copies properly and thus had to redo much of it once my instructor pointed out errors that I'd need to fix in order to pass the class. (It's pass/fail, so in that respect the stakes were lower.) But we also went through databases, queries, reports and data-entry forms in Access. I was quite happy that we didn't use Access for work back in my professional life, even if the reports and data-entry forms might have been useful. Because when the instructor let us take a look at the Structured Query Language (SQL) view, all the nested round brackets etc. made the syntax look pretty hairy.

***

As far as the war on Iran goes, the news feels much more bearable if one has a daily routine to immerse one's self in selfishly. Then the moment I hear of the news again, I feel plunged back into a dystopia. For what it's worth, we're hearing in the German news about German travellers who were stranded in the Middle East when airports were being shot at and missiles intercepted over hotel roofs, but also high gas and oil prices. (One Berlin company that uses trucks told the RBB Abendschau frankly that if this situation continues 6 more months, they'll be out of business because there's no way their clients will want to pay for that.) Of course the war itself is also being reported on.

I decided to go by the Iranian embassy in Berlin today to get the lay of the land during this unfortunately historic time. The embassy is on a street of large and fancy villas near the university (Berlin is generally too cramped for buildings of that size, which seem more typical of the rich Babelsberg area between us and Potsdam), not far from the Indian and Jordanian representatives. The Iranian embassy is the only one with a police booth in front. Two male cops were patrolling along the sidewalk, one of them in what looked to me like a formal dress uniform cap that I never see amongst the riot police at protests. They were chatting with each other, seeming relaxed enough, a white-and-red security fence separating them from the street.

In and on the fence of the embassy there were photographs presumably of victims of the latest war, wilted roses, flags of the Islamic Republic, and posters saying 'No War on Iran' and '160 killed on the first day' (referring to the school in Minab). At the same time, across the street, ten or so protestors were playing music and holding the sun-emblazoned flag of the monarchist movement. They have been protesting for weeks, non-stop, under the slogan "Stoppt Hinrichtungen im Iran/Solidarität mit den Bürgerprotesten im Iran."

But I didn't talk with the protestors. I was feeling hungry (no breakfast) and exhausted after my long day, and I didn't want to be a disaster tourist.

To be honest, as a private individual I also think that only one of the Pahlavis who was actually imprisoned for opposing the Shah sounds pretty compelling.

In general, I've been feeling that the war is not an amateur journalism-friendly topic, either. One reason is that the war on Iran seems so inscrutable: if I were working in foreign intelligence, I think I'd have a better grip on things. That said, I suspect that a recent report in the Guardian is the only explanation that makes sense: some American military commanders, certainly also the Ambassador to Israel, and perhaps the Secretary of Defense, are pushing this war, because this military campaign has a Biblical dimension and is linked to their conception of Armageddon.

Either way, the more closely I follow the news, the more contradictions I find. For example, when the tens of thousands of Iranian protestors were killed earlier this year, I read that Israel and Persian Gulf neighbours tried to prevent the U.S. president from attacking Iran's military and police in defense of the protestors, because the Middle Eastern countries were worried about the blowback. But then, right after the war broke out, the Prime Minister of Israel was reported as being the person who had brought up the idea of a military intervention. I've also read that Saudi Arabia's government was pushing for the war.

Another example: Governments like Germany's and Canada's seem to be in favour of the US-Israeli attacks. Yet when they're asked about sending in the military, they rule it out except in a 'defensive role.' But if the war were actually justified, and if the threat to other countries from Iran's military had been so great and time-critical, surely they'd be willing to do their part?

A third example: all of the arguments used by those who want to attack Iran would apply just as well to Russia (threat of nuclear war) or Saudi Arabia (religious extremism and misogyny, besides which I think the Trump administration wants to give them nuclear technology).

Of course it worries me to feel that governments are being so dishonest. I'm also worried that this war will radicalize people.

In the meantime, Ramadan goes on. The current routine in my neighbourhood is: people in a good mood when I go shopping, crescent moon decorations in the restaurant beneath my family's apartment, dates and water bottles and bread baskets set out on tables for the breaking of the fast, the call of the muezzin at dusk, and families eating al fresco at the tables on the sidewalk.

Turning of the Times

On Saturday morning I woke up incredibly early (by my standards; it was before 6:30 a.m.) and took one of the few bus lines that wasn't affected by the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe strikes to the district Moabit, to volunteer at the Berlin charity that gathers and redistributes leftover food from grocery stores.

It was going quite well. First the reddish sunrise at the Beusselstraße station overlooking the shipping containers, train tracks, and GDR architecture, then arriving early at the warehouse and having a coffee before setting off for a drive. I was accompanying a driver who was doing a tour of grocery stores and a bakery shop in Wedding and Prenzlauer Berg to transfer produce and other food into crates, pack the crates into the charity's van, and then bring everything back to the charity's warehouse. There was little traffic early in the day, and as the driver considerately waved tentative pedestrians across the streets, everyone was relaxed and smiling. Hopping out at the stores, checking in with the cashier or going straight to the fruit & vegetable section to find the earpiece'd employee in charge of sorting out donations, etc. went well too.

Two or so hours later, admittedly, the traffic began to thicken and the sunny temperatures to rise. I began to feel hungry for the snacks I'd packed as the driver lowered the windows for fresh air. But I still felt a sense of adventure and achievement, and enjoyed the sunshine.

Then the local radio channel that was playing pop hits from the 80s and 90s switched to a news break, and the rest of the day was ruined... 'The situation in the Middle East has escalated further as the US and Israel have begun attacking Iran,' said the announcer in German. Then the music resumed.

The energy drained out of me, and I've felt pretty weepy. It's worse because Germany, the UK, and even France's governments have reacted in my view weakly; the solidarity and moral clarity that we saw during the invasion of Ukraine isn't there as a comfort. It enrages me to think of the Israeli government plane sitting on the tarmac of Berlin's airport after being evacuated from the Mediterranean for its safety, as missiles hit Israeli residents who are evidently not being treated with the same care by their government. As for the Canadian government's reaction, let's not even go there.

It's not like I care all that much what happened to the Ayatollah, but I don't think that democracy and safety for Iranians will be instilled into Tehran one bomblet at a time. And besides I have such a low opinion of Trump that I think, given the chance to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, he'd only have done so in order to build a McDonald's (or an outlet of his favourite US corporation du jour) there and use the camp survivors as cheap labour. Hopefully I'm not trivializing the Holocaust by making this comparison. To put it more reasonably, I distrust his motives — the presence of the Energy and Treasury secretaries in the White House situation room as the war began also suggests to me that a primary post-invasion aim is to annex Iran's oil — and I think that shoddy motives lead to shoddy outcomes.

The strikes on the northern coast of the Strait of Hormuz, where the girls' elementary school was hit and over a hundred people died according to the local prosecutor, are I think explained though not excused by this New York Times report. The report says that until 2016 the building was part of a naval base, but since then a wall has separated it off from the base. Satellite surveillance would surely have shown small people regularly drifting in and out before and at the end of the usual school hours? During the Clinton administrations I'm quite sure the president would have been asked to resign by multiple newspaper editorials, and likely leading Republican congresspeople, if he had started a war with this kind of gross error.

Besides it's very disconcerting even from a selfish perspective to have a president in power in the US who seems to start wars as often as, if not more often than, he sneezes. What will happen to Cuba (I think the oil embargo is already extremely cruel), Greenland, Canada, and other countries?

All in all I think the last time I felt this badly, and this depressed, about world events was after September 11th. As the ripples of this new war spread and spread, it seems to suck the joy out of life.

At the same time I have to acknowledge that this war doesn't make civilians in the Gaza Strip or Sudan or Ukraine less dead; there are also other wars going on that are no less terrible.

And, finally, not having lived in Iran myself, I also have to acknowledge that the opinions of people who have lived — and do live — there, matter more than my assessment.

Spreadsheets, Fairy Wings and Progressives

After months of largely cloudy weather and subzero temperatures, we've had a few glimpses of sunshine. Today it was warm enough, at around 6°C when I checked my phone, that the snow caps on parked cars have melted away. A wave of days up to over 10°C is impending. So I've felt encouraged to bed out the sprouted flower bulbs from our pantry in plastic pots with fresh soil, and put them into my south-facing window.

I've had my first week of the holiday career preparation course, which will largely be about Excel. Since I use spreadsheets and calendars a lot e.g. to track how expensive groceries are at different times of year, and want to round out the knowledge of spreadsheets from my last job for my c.v., it is interesting and rewarding. That said, I still feel battered from the semester itself, as well as the job search, budgeting, and the weight of international politics. The room where the Excel classes take place is also a little stifling, although the instructor airs it during the 15-minute break half-way through the 3.5 hour class. So perhaps it's not surprising that Tuesday through Thursday I routinely developed a migraine headache after the first hour or so, trotting home in faintly nauseated misery in the equally airless U-Bahn — except during the minutes where I walked between stations to get fresh air and exercise, and felt marginally better.

In Germany's national news: Our Chancellor recently claimed that we Germans of working age have been picking up part-time work as a 'lifestyle,' depriving our Nation of the good ol' 40-hour week that we should invest instead (unless we are caretakers for children). Statistically I think that Germany's job productivity is fairly high if one compares other EU countries, but 'mine not to question why' our dear CDU has decided that the German economy needs to kill our work-life balance, rather than make a concerted effort to remove bureaucratic hurdles or attract foreign skilled workers. Anyway, it's still being debated. There was some equally charming critique with which our Chancellor was trying to drill the delinquent German workforce into renewed Prussian virtue, but I've forgotten it.

The CDU is generally full of ideas lately. Their pension reform I haven't read about in detail, although the pitched battles between the CDU party proper and the CDU party youth organization sound dramatic.

The happiest development, at the same CDU party conference where these issues are being hashed out,  was that Angela Merkel appeared for the first time since she stopped being Chancellor. My cold, pessimistic soul thawed a little when the Tagesschau showed her in the hall.

I'm wondering when the tide in Germany will turn in the direction of Spain's recent pragmatic acceptance when it comes to immigration. Given that the CDU has just decided (in the first days of the holy month of Ramadan) that they want to ban full-body veils, which I suspect are worn by such an infinitesimal percentage of Germany's population that this ban is even more of a mere racist dog-whistle than it would otherwise be, I'm guessing it will not turn yet.

And Merz's oscillation between firm criticism of wilder trans-Atlantic policy announcements, and wide-eyed Peter Pan insistence that the US federal government will grow fairy wings again if we clap our hands and believe, is also making me dizzy. To be fair, judging by the two dignitaries from Germany's business community who commented in the Tagesschau news on US tariffs today, he's not the only one oscillating in that fashion.

*

Anyway, I become especially dogged, cynical and resentful about politics if I don't make little positive changes where possible, so I've been trying to nudge ahead my Detrumpification programme.

A main part is tech independence. A former colleague posted a website that lists online services based in the European Union that can be counterparts to US products. Disenchanted with Google's leadership and not eager to send my data into the claws of the Mar a Lago regime, I've been trying out the French video platform Dailymotion instead of YouTube. So far, the content seems to be different, so a 1:1 comparison is impossible. But news organizations like Deutsche Welle do upload worthwhile reports and I am sure there is more to explore. Dailymotion's videos also offer an 'eco' setting, which is even easier than checking for low-resolution 144 or 240 pixel settings; I usually do that so that I don't waste resources streaming high-resolution video that I don't need. ... Aside from video platforms: If I can figure out how the coding works, I'm planning to migrate my Wordpress blogging to Typo3.

In terms of other aspects of my programme, I've also found that Ms. Magazine's website is a motherlode of leftwing intellectual property. Almost every line of every article would probably make the current administration cringe, so I've been reading the articles regularly.

I also visit other US websites because they are doing good work: e.g. the New York Times, the New Yorker, and (admittedly) the YouTube presence of PBS NewsHour. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show, and Jimmy Kimmel too, but late night comedy feels more like a Job's comfort than the press's reporting, and — despite their fact-checking — I think the shows' writers do get a few details wrong.

Besides I watched the recent livestream of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's discussion at the Technical University here in Berlin. It was interesting — revealing, too, about German politics, even if Germany wasn't the focus. For what it's worth, I didn't watch video of AOC's panel from the World Economic Forum so I can't speak to how she 'did' there in terms of expertly answering foreign policy questions. Regardless, I've considered her clever and quick on her feet ever since she was first elected to Congress. And her point, made in Berlin, was valid: it is more important to discuss progressive politics in general, also as a way to expound future alternatives to the 47th President, than to speculate if she wants to be a progressive presidential candidate in particular.... Also, I was amused as the university president and the former Mayor of Berlin giggled their way through their introductory speeches — dedicated AOC fans.

My campaign to read Canadian books to support Canada's economy is progressing. I'm reading an audiobook memoir and a contemporary fiction ebook. As both books have a depressing subject matter, I'd say that watching episodes of the comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes (especially the one where the production travelled to Greenland and interviewed Greenlandic parliamentarians, the mayor of Nuuk, and other citizens) has been the happier choice.

*

Lastly, not related to Detrumpification, but just to mention Berlin news: this evening the Berlinale film festival ended. I watched livestreams of film press conferences, but didn't take any photos this year.

In other news, the escalators at Berlin's main train station are operational again!

Between the Scylla of the Semester and the Charybdis of the Holiday Course

The second-last week before the holidays is winding down:

Monday's Spanish class was online due to the BVG city transit strike and the icy conditions on the sidewalks. It really was quite dangerous until snow fell in the early morning hours on Wednesday, and laid a layer of soft powder over the ossified ice.

Tuesday we discussed El celoso extremeño by Miguel de Cervantes in the Spanish literature seminar. The subject matter — people exploiting power differentials to oppress women — was not very edifying (even if it was timely). Besides I like Cervantes's arch humour better when it's used on different topics, which sounds a bit worldly and learned so I should mention at once that I never finished reading Don Quijote.

Then, Wednesday, the Spanish class held a debate. Our topic: tourism in Berlin. The discussion ended up delving into the problems or advantages of AirBnBs, whether we should be attracting wealthy tourists or not, the responsibilities of local government and of tourists, and lastly the historical and sociopolitical importance of having people visit Berlin and understand what really happened especially in the 20th century.

Besides I found out that I received a 2,7 mark for my second Spanish essay. — That's not excellent, but it is a relief considering that I felt I was 'getting too big for my britches' after getting a 1,0 on the last assignment. It was awkward when I received the feedback sheet, however... I'd gotten top marks ... except that it was a classmate's sheet that the professor had given me by accident! So a classmate knows that I had a far worse mark than he did, my brief optimism withered, and the professor apologized to him but not also to me for the mix-up! Anyway, the mark should not have been high. Finishing writing the essay in the early morning hours, not proofreading it after a good night's sleep, and disabling spell check on my word processing app had led to spectacular grammatical and orthographical errors.

The essay's topic was cheerful, at least. I wrote about the economic effects of immigration.. and I started off my essay by mentioning the news that the Spanish government intends to 'legalize' around 500,000 undocumented migrants.

In the afternoon, in a different class, we discussed an early 20th-century Ukrainian novel, a Bildungsroman, which I prefer to forget about although the class itself was nice.

Today I had an online Greek grammar class. We struggled with when to use the present, imperfect, aorist, or pluperfect, in the subjunctive mood. The English equivalent would be e.g. 'If he had found a telephone, he would have reported his car breakdown.'

*

I haven't had luck with the job search yet. Most recently, I sent off one application to a conversation research study that offered a chance to win a gift certificate, and another application to a law firm that needs help in their office. I'm also wondering whether to try to earn small sums here and there by writing, an idea that I'm sure will inspire a hollow laugh in many a person who has tried to do the same on a larger and more serious scale.

That said, I'd kind of prefer to dive into irresponsibility and have lots of time for journalistic outings. Finally visit the Danish embassy to write a piece about its cultural offerings and the contrast to the geopolitical storms surrounding it. Contact Canadian filmmakers who will be at the Berlinale film festival in order to write up their work. Attend a political protest again. Watch local winter sports and gain a little background knowledge instead of feeding the capitalist monster of the Olympics. Find out more about the Washington Post staff who were laid off in the Berlin bureau. Etc. Unfortunately, I don't think it's looking practical right now due to university commitments — not just the last tasks for this semester, but also the 'Allgemeine Berufsvorbereitung' technology course that I will take into mid-March.

In the meantime, I'm trying to lose some of my anxiety about life by revisiting TV shows about life in the 1950s, 'unplugging' to read print media, and doing more housework. Having already watched the Fifties episodes of Back in Time for the Weekend and Back in Time for Dinner, I've moved on to "The Supersizers Eat... The 1950s". Today I cooked a celery, carrot, turnip, onion and chicken soup from a 1900 recipe, as well as green peas, and baked a jam-carrot sponge with apricot jam for dessert. And, less thrillingly, I cleaned one of our bathroom sinks with baking soda, citric acid, hot water and a little muscle-power; took care of personal accounting tasks; and handwashed a load of dishes...

The pension fund windfall I'm expecting didn't arrive in January and I may be in a sticky situation in a year. But I think the worst part is just not having had a mini-job or part-time job since September; it is cracking my sense of self-sufficient independence. This might also not be so bad, however, if I weren't still uselessly self-flagellating about 'failing' at my previous full-time job.

Fortunately, brother Ge. lent his services to one of our aunts for a technical problem recently ... and she sent him chocolate truffles as a thank-you, and he shared the chocolate with us today! 

Ice in Berlin and Chaos Abroad

It has snowed again, after freezing rain, so after eschewing my bicycle and taking the U-Bahn to university, I walked between two stations on the way home to look at the scenery today.

On the streets and sidewalks, the weather brought us compacted ice, a sprinkling of snow rather like powdered sugar (footprints and tire treads stenciled out of it), and crushed gravel sprayed by the diligent snowplows of the Berliner Stadtreinigung and others. Around the bodies of cars, fringes of icicles were hanging. And where trees and bushes were not gloved in ice, they were frosted white.

I looked at paw-prints of dogs in the snow as I walked parallel to the U-Bahn tracks in Dahlem, and the glowing rose hips and red hawthorn berries in the hedges, the male hazel catkins with dark glossy blots where ice had settled. Two Nordic walkers energetically approached, but the rest of us who didn't wield pointy sticks were a little more careful.

Of course the stairs into the U-Bahn were gritty and splotched brown with the crushed gravel that we were tracking in.

I'VE BEEN a bit psychologically hung over from the weekend, since Saturday was unusually busy and besides my sleep pattern has been disrupted by e.g. a funny burning smell in our apartment keeping me awake past 5 a.m. one day. But part of the activity on Saturday was lunch in Prenzlauer Berg, in good company. To go into too much detail about the more trivial part: French toast served with finely chopped pineapple, kiwi and strawberry slices, halved grapes, lashings of maple syrup, and whipping cream (all of it reminiscent of the summer weather that is currently far, far away). For my drink I had fresh ginger tea with mint leaves and a fragment of orange. And afterward, in a small family evening get-together, we commemorated Papa with music and conversation and food; he would have turned 73 the week before last.

Due to the 'hangover,' I've already skipped two university classes this week. That said, the marks on my Spanish class presentation came in, and the professor was so impressed that he gave me a 1,0. Not very well deserved, perhaps, but it's comforting for academic and professional reasons to edge closer to the official B2 European language level in Spanish.

RETURNING to the café meal: In my budget, there is less room for discretionary spending. At a guess I still power through some €1250 per month, however. Of course the rent that I pay my mother is not extortionate (not to mention that my siblings and mother have repeatedly urged me to decrease the payments), and the biggest other expenditure is health insurance. So some of the rest still goes to fun stuff, like French toast. But I recently received good news: a private pension fund, into which my employer paid for two years, has been dissolved. So I am expecting a windfall of around €2500 after taxes etc.

On the job front, I've been offering myself as a tutor (partly because I've liked instilling knowledge, partly also because I really want to mother-hen somebody again). I also applied to be a participant a.k.a. guinea pig in a medical study. The second possibility has withered a little: when I'd filled out the screening form, they replied saying that my migraines rendered me ineligible.

AS FOR LESS personal events, the news has been despicable.

Firstly, I'm not too keen on the EU Commission's pursuit of new free trade agreements with South America and India as a way out of our dependence on the whims of the Queens real estate magnate in the White House: surely we have learned that free trade needs to be approached carefully. If I understand correctly, one long-term effect of past agreements like NAFTA seems to have been collapsing industries that help keep rural areas or specific towns economically and socially thriving, thereby fuelling populism and unlivable hardship in those areas. Being locked in Faustian bargains with the Mileis and Modis of this world also does not seem much better than being locked in Faustian bargains with the Trumps of this world. But so far those concerns also pale in comparison to the bloodshed in Minneapolis.

As for the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, I was (like many others) especially happy about Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech. Specifically I liked that he acknowledged that international law has not been followed consistently in the past, but embraced the idea of 'middle powers' cooperating with each other, all while quoting Thucydides and displaying considerable backbone. But Chancellor Friedrich Merz's speech was worrying. Merz should have pointed out that the 'brutal new reality' that he describes in world affairs goes against the laws and best practices that Germany is obligated to defend, given the lessons of its own Fascist history. Instead, as far as I could tell, he suggested hopping on the bandwagon, although with an eye to extracting advantages for the EU. Similarly I think that NATO's head Mark Rutte is taking a page out of Trump's amoral book by negotiating over Greenland and Denmark's heads.

If indeed US and EU security experts, as the New York Times reported, agree that Russia and China seem to have little interest in Greenland at present, Merz's suggestion at Davos that Russia is the main threat was also especially toadying and embarrassing. As for the other speakers, I didn't bother watching Trump's speech. Much though I liked aspects of France's president Macron's speech, I felt that like Ukraine's president Zelensky's speech, it represented a descent into a Trumpian style of airing everything that pops into one's head.

Returning to the aforementioned Chancellor, I was reasonably happy with Angela Merkel as chancellor, though rarely ecstatic. I'm also trying to give Merz the benefit of the doubt because the role of chancellor is so demanding, and I'm sure he's trying. But, as a happily irresponsible member of the peanut gallery, I'll just frankly divulge did not expect her successor to fall as short in terms of percipience, charm, and moral stature, as he has.

That said, Davos offered one comfort. Last year I stopped watching any videos from the Forum because the pro-Trump paeans from roundtable discussion moderators etc. were nauseating. It also wasn't surprising to me to read from the point of view a New York Times reporter who has been to Davos repeatedly, that the Forum has lost any genuine desire for sustainable policy and business practices that it once pursued. Instead it has dedicated itself to empty "virtue signalling" (once signalling DEI and climate change reduction, and now signalling more Trumpian 'virtues'). But this year at least there was some intellectual friction.

INSPIRED mostly by the not-at-all-unhinged situation around Greenland, I've been taking notes on how to put together an emergency kit:

I've gotten as far as putting 1.5 L (per the Red Cross it should be 1 gallon) of water in my room. Next up: putting together a supply of survival food, Item #2 on a 31-item list. As I told my brother Ge., at least I haven't gone so far as to consider iodine tablets or a Geiger counter... These paranoid preparations, which I'd admittedly scoff at any other time, should be useful in case someone decides to sabotage parts of Berlin's electrical supply again, too.

And once the university semester is over — 2 or 3 weeks of classes, 2 essays, and 1 class presentation are left before mid-February — maybe I will finally take that First Aid course...

In the meantime I've signed up for another food-sorting shift at the same Berlin charity whose challenging field of work inspired me to write the whiny descriptions of rotten carrots etc. over the summer. The shift should take place next weekend.