German Joys

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.

Egmont Mayer on Vimeo

Quite cool.

Heidelstan

A friend of mine traveling through Heidelberg noticed this amusing juxtaposition:

No barrier!

A Wonderful New Norwegian Band!

While doing a research-related search for the term "up the asspipe", I stumbled upon the MySpace page for F**khole, a delicious new Norwegian snark-punk ensemble. Visit them here. (note: "up the asspipe" is filed under the myspace category "sounds like").

And in case you're put off by the charmingly passe "punk" sounds emanating from the website, I can assure you that, like almost all Norwegian punk bands, F**hole are almost certainly composed of kind, patient, self-effacing young men, most of whom probably still live with their parents.

A Fine Roman Snail

While bicycling along the Rhine last weekend, I came across this glorious beast ambling across the trail:

This is helix pomatia, known in German as a Weinbergschnecke (lit: vineyard snail). It belongs to the category of animals known in German as Weichtiere (lit: soft animals!). It has various names in English, such as Burgundy snail or Roman snail (since we know the Romans liked to eat them). They are generally what you get in a French restaurant when you order escargot.

In the wild, they can live 6-8 years, in captivity up to 20.  Specimens found in the wild are protected under the German equivalent (g) of the Endangered Species Act. They are hermaphrodites who nevertheless mate in pairs, a process which involves two snails rearing up, locking their moist bodies together, and stabbing each other with 11-millimeter long "love darts". Not unlike what goes on in my apartment of a Saturday night.

The snail made me think of this stanza of a poem by Kenneth Koch: 

Look at this wolf.

He is lighter than a car

But heavier than a baby carriage.

He is highly effective.

Each wolf manifestation is done entirely in the classic manner of a wolf.

He stands completely still.

He is not "too busy to talk to you,"

Not "in conference" or "on the phone."

Some day there may not be any more wolves.

Civilization has not been moving in a way that is favorable to them.

Meanwhile, there is this one.