German Joys

Obscure Cultural Trivia Contest

Been a while since we had one of these! So, honors to the first commenter who can tell me where this image comes from:

Friday Music Blogging

'The Illking' from Mouse on Mars:

The World's Red Zones

Just by looking at it, what would you guess this chart measures?

Commencement: Bats & Dementia

Heidelbergerin has some observations on German commencement ceremonies:  

Graduates sat in the front few rows, and each got to invite three people to come see them go up for their diploma. There wasn't any checking of tickets or anything, though. The graduates just dressed nicely - no funny robes or hats. There was one Scottish guy in a kilt. The program opened with some Beethoven on a piano. Nobody processed in, everybody was already just sitting there. Next, a guy with a cool bow tie and hat - the only guy who had any remotely academic costume going on - welcomed everybody, presented something to a couple of the graduates (frankly, I didn't find this part important enough to bother trying to translate it in my head), and introduced the main speaker.

We thought the speaker would say something relevant to the occasion of graduating, receiving a higher degree, education these days, the philosophy of the practice of and research in medicine, or something. But, the talk was actually about dementia. Not that dementia is not an interesting topic, but I totally failed to see how it fit with graduation. The speaker was totally full of himself, but it was at least amusing to watch him up there making animated academic-looking gestures, the likes of which you normally only see in comedy, quoting Latin and English, and being generally dramatic.

Halfway through his incredibly long speech, unfortunately a woman in the audience actually had a seizure and her friend called for a doctor. I think 3/4 of the room stood up. We were also entertained by some cute little bat that found its way into the auditorium and then just couldn't get out again.

After the speech, there was another piano piece, followed by an opera selection from The Marriage of Figaro. Again: huh? The singer and pianist were great, but the relevance of all this was still failing me. Then the graduates received their degrees. First the summa cum laude graduates were called up individually and received diplomas placed inside black folders. Then the rest of the graduates were called up four at a time and received their diplomas stuck inside a plastic sleeve with binder holes. Even though they were called up alphabetically, no advance effort had been made to seat the graduates in any sort of order, so they had to clamber over each other to get up to the front when called. There had also been no effort made to ask the graduates how their names were pronounced, so the MC had to stumble through them on his own, and it wasn't pretty. After this, yet another irrelevant opera selection, then we got to have some champagne and pretzels in the lobby (best part!!!). In all it took two hours.

I love the bat. A delightful detail. The "commencement speaker" was almost certainly a recently-appointed professor giving his Antrittsvorlesung, or inaugural lecture. These generally don't have anything to do with graduation; they relate to whatever the professor's research interests are. (Full disclosure: I'll be giving one of these (g) in about two weeks myself). To an American used to American-style graduation ceremonies, it will probably seem a bit off-putting to have to sit through a lecture on some topic that may be of very limited interest. Certainly nothing like the touchy-feely, brimful-with-hope commencement addresses typical in the U.S.

Signs of my creeping Europeanization appear in my reaction to the commencement address. Sure, the shriveled remnants of the American in me say "Goshdangit! Isn't it all supposed to be about the students? Isn't it their Special Day? Shouldn't they receive congratulations and perhaps some good advice for the road?" The American thinks there's something chillingly impersonal -- and perhaps even sinister -- about hundreds of people being forced to listen to a speech on a topic that is likely only to interest a few.

Then the European retorts: "Ach! You narcissistic Americans! First you shamelessly coddle your college students, inflating their already-healthy sense of self-regard and solipsism. Then, when they finally have to leave college, you shower them with yet more praise, giving them a big pat on the back for having finished college and, at least at the better colleges, warning them about all the Responsibility they will have to shoulder in their important new careers.

But in Europe, young people go to college not to feel better about themselves, but to learn things. The Antrittsvorlesung reminds everyone in the audience of what the primary purpose of the university is: to generate and convey knowledge. And so what if the Antrittsvorlesung might be a little complex? You American always want everything to be fun, perky, bite-sized, shrinkwrapped into easily-digestible edutainment. One of life's more important skills is sitting still and paying attention. Especially to something that may be a bit challenging to understand, or that you might disagree with. And believe me, that's what most of these graduates are going to be doing a lot of once they enter the hard, cold world of real work. The sooner they start practicing, the better.

Let us now draw a veil before the increasingly heated debate between the American and European. We can all agree that not practicing the graduates' names or seating them in a logical order was incompetent and rude. I've never seen a German commencement ceremony where this was done right. Part of the problem is, of course, the authoritarian design of most German university classrooms, which force everyone to cram in beside one another in cramped, narrow, wooden seats. But another reason is the general lack of professionalism in the way German universities are managed. The task of organizing the commencement ceremony was probably just given to some hapless employee of the Dean's Office or to a team of bored graduate students. Nobody has any incentive to put more than the minimum amount of effort into organizing the event. 'The commencement ceremony has always been chaotic and amateurish,' they think, 'and that hasn't ended anyone's career, so why should I kill myself to make this one much better?'

On the other hand, the situation's even worse in France, where, I have it on good authority, the 'commencement ceremony' generally takes the form of a contemptuous, chain-smoking bureaucrat shoving your diploma at you through a slit in a greasy plexiglas window.

German Word of the Week: Muttersaft

Germ ans, we are told, consume more fruit juice than any other nation on the face of the planet, except Canada and the United States (!). As you might expect, this daily activity has been subjected by German agencies to a great deal of careful scrutiny. Here's a chart (g) showing that more than 1/3 of Germans drink fruit juice at least several times a week. There's even an Ordnance on Fruit Juice, Certain Similar Products, and Fruit Nectars (g). Every bottle of serious juice comes with full information about the latest results of official testing designed to certify its purity and organic status.

And, as you might expect, Germans produce a lot of high-quality fruit juice. Sure, you can get Capri Sun and other objectionable fluids (g) here, but real Germans would never drink that syrup. Instead, they'll reach for any number of exotic fruit combinations, or naturally-cloudy apple juice, or the ubiquitous  Apfelschorle, the mixture of apple juice and carbonated water that is Germany's national summer refreshment.

Or, if they're hardcore like me, they'll reach for Muttersaft, which literally translated, means "mother-juice." I know what you're thinking (g). Stop it! Muttersaft refers to the pure, unfiltered, unsweetened first-press juice of a fruit or berry, as the organic-juice producer Rabenhorst (g) informs us on this website. It's thick and syrupy and not at all sweet. You could theoretically drink this stuff straight, but you might dissolve a few teeth that way. Instead, you might add a couple ounces of it to mineral water, or mix up some fabulously astringent cocktails with it. Mix up some linden-tree honey, blueberry and cranberry Muttersaft, mineral water and some ice-cold vodka, and have yourself a 100% organic merry old time!

Rate My Rants!

Just for fun, I've installed the outbrain post-rating widget on this blog, so that you can instantly rate my meaningless nattering!

Feel free to rate this post, you scrofulous shirtlifters. That is, if you can still move your onanism-palsied palps.

I wish each of you a nightmarish and despair-racked Fourth of July.

Update: The very first rating came from someone in New Zealand who gave a 1-star raspberry to the post Heintje Turns 50. That's the spirit!

A German Swimming School

Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities, one of my favorite blogs, confronts us with illustrations from a German swimming manual published in 1826:

Vengeance is Mine, Sayeth the Professor

I don't do this often, but I think it's time for a political rant! The trigger is this recent letter written to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

As one of three generations of Bernard L. Madoff victims myself, and a criminal law professor who calls for proportional punishment — no more nor less than deserved — I read with concern reports claiming that Mr. Madoff received the “maximum.”

We focus too much on the duration rather than the intensity of his prison sentence. Because he inflicted pain and suffering on unknowing victims in order to achieve an undeserved lavish lifestyle, every day in prison for the rest of his life he should eat nothing but tasteless Nutri-loaf and clean latrines. Then and only then will we victims come close to being satisfied.

Robert Blecker
New York, June 30, 2009

Blecker's website can be found here. He is indeed a criminal-law professor, perhaps best-known for his tireless advocacy of the death penalty. To me, that's neither here nor there -- let a thousand flowers bloom, and all that. But this letter represents so much of what I find annoying about American criminal-justice discourse. Perhaps about American discourse in general. Let me list the ways:

• Look how fair I am! The longer I live in Europe, the more Americans' insatiable appetite for self-congratulation, well-captured by de Tocqueville, irritates me. Just make your point, Professor, no need to let us know how exquisitely just you are. Also, since you seem to have stumbled upon the answer to a question that has vexed philosophers for millennia, would you mind letting us mortals know how you're able to determine exactly how much punishment ("no more nor [sic] less") is deserved in every single case?
• Manicheanism. American criminal-justice discourse is plagued by a sort of manicheanism that you find almost nowhere else: all responsibility for the crime is displaced onto a depraved 'other' whose black deeds have forfeited his claim to live in human society and differentiates him utterly from us. Sure, Bernie Madoff committed a serious crime and deserves punishment, but his 'victims' came in many different colors. Plenty of them begged to deposit their money with him. And, unlike a desperate cancer patient exploited by a quack, Madoff's victims had safer and more transparent choices -- they just wanted the fat returns he promised. This doesn't mean they share responsibility equally with the fraudster, but it could perhaps be an appropriate occasion for a little, you know, soul-searching...
•  Anything short of torture is coddling. Anywhere on the rest of the planet, most thoughtful people would say a 150-year prison sentence which will certainly require you to spend every single remaining day of your life in an American prison, with no hope of regaining freedom, is a crushing penalty. But I guess all of these people are simply making the mistake the wise Professor gently warns us against: of focusing too much on trivialities such as the mere 'duration' of a prison sentence. Yes, it's the conditions in American prisons that are scandalously lax. Imagine that: you'll see nothing but the inside of an institution until you die in its sterile infirmary. No more sex, no more walks in the park, no more vacations, no more control over whom you spend your time with or what you eat, and humiliating daily searches. Blecker, showing an utter lack of imagination, doesn't seem to have ever thought of prison in this way. He's anxious that a life sentence may let Madoff off lightly. In this, he's got a lot in common with Americans, and with American judges who sentence defendants to thousands of years in prison before getting in trouble and going there themselves, whereupon they suddenly realize it's a vicious, dehumanizing place that serves little purpose.
• Justice is what the victims demand. In addition to his supreme philosophical insight, Blecker also can apparently read minds, since he's able to assure us exactly what all of Madoff's victims will need to see in order for them to be 'satisfied.' Him eating Nutri-loaf and 'clean latrines' (ouch), that is. (Assuming I read that poorly-framed sentence correctly). All that extra, life-long humiliation might be illegal and pointless, but more importantly, it will make the victims feel good, and isn't that the point of the criminal-justice system? But wait -- can it really be true that there's 100% consensus on the Nutri-Loaf issue? I bet you could find many of Madoff's victims would would want to see him executed, and some hippie freaks who might think a short prison term is enough. How to resolve this conundrum? Oh, wait -- I have an idea! How about delegating the right to punish to the state, and creating a reasonably fair, transparent procedure for assessing it?

I could go on, but I suppose you get the picture. How I'd love to debate this Blecker fellow...

[Note: picture of Nutri-Loaf prison food substitute found here.]

 

Life in the Big City

Me, I'm a city boy. Why? Because on my way to work today (an 8-minute bicycle ride), I stop by my postman's cart to wait for him to come out of building where he's delivering mail.

As I'm waiting, a woman  in her mid-40s walks, puffing and grunting, up the slight incline to the entrance of the building I'm waiting in front of. She's carrying a bag full of groceries, and a plastic six-pack of cola bottles from which she's removed two, for some reason. Sweat is running down the tendrils of her hair, and has soaked her generously-proportioned body. She's wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, baggy shorts, and very well-worn sandals. As she fumbles for her keys, she says "Damned heat! I'll be glad when it's over" as sweat drops fall, one by one from the bridge of her nose.

On the side of her grocery bag, in English: "WARNING! DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE!" 

And The Award For Most Disingenuous Use of the Word "Friend" in Human History Goes To...

...[drum roll]...Richard Nixon:

"It may be they have a death wish. You know that's been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries."

Quote of the Day: de Sechelles on Glory

"Who is the father of Glory? Genius. Who is the mother of Genius? Solitude."

Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, Pensees et Anecdotes.