Road Trip

We are on a road trip right now.  A very American thing to do and – I have to admit – I like them, too.  I spent too much time in air planes anyway and the idea of just throwing stuff into the trunk and not debating with my son whether we can take this book or that, and be able to add this extra pair of hiking boots makes things easier.

Also, road trips are much more educational.  On one many years ago (before the son) my husband and I ended up in a small town in Utah.  It was Saturday night, we’ve had early dinner (there were two options: early dinner or no dinner, so we choose the first) and now felt ready to crash in our Motel with a book and a bottle of red wine.  So we went to the local store and started rummaging the shelves coming up empty handed.  I asked the cashier where he kept the wine.  He made a very serious face, said “come with me”, walked us out of the store, pointed south and said: “if you take this road and drive south for about 200 miles – that’s where you can buy wine.”  I learned something there – I never go on a road trip again without a few bottles of wine.

Today, we ended up in a town in the south-eastern Sierra, outside Sequoia National Park but not in Death Valley National Park yet.  The claim to fame of this town is a naval base, which is somewhat surprising as the Pacific is about 180 miles away and the promised lake is no more (it has been dried out for many years).  It is one of these places that lack all charm and character and are populated by a very surprising number of auto parts stores.  But then, maybe that isn’t surprising after all: we were looking for a place not too far away where we could go on a little hike and ended up in a interesting area, full of boulders, and low shrub, tumbleweed and some Joshua Trees and huge RVs with trailers with dirt bikes on them.  Pretty much everybody from the kids onwards was riding dirt bikes around (the motorized kind, of course), creating huge plumes of dust by spinning the wheels around.  Also there seem to be a good supply of small, all terrain like cars which they used to drive around as well.  As we walked through the camp, I told my husband that I assume that nobody in this whole group will walk more than a mile in a week in the wilderness (and the fire wood piles looked like they would last a week).  we hike up a small hill to enjoy the view at sunset and as we left a whole succession of cars came spinning up the little hill, apparently the idea of actually hiking up that thing did not occur to anybody but us.

The views we got from the RV crowd as we walked back to our car confirmed that much.  This is a world completely foreign to us, the whole idea of driving a huge-ass RV to the high dessert and then sit around all day or drive dirt bikes around the camp all day long, then take drive up the hill after sunset, then sit by the fire and do it all over the next day, and the next is rather unappealing to me.  However, here, we are clearly in the minority (and would be on all topics related to god, guns, politics, gay marriage, abortion, birth control, sciences education and untold others).  It is always strange to come from the liberal coast to places like this and feel so completely outnumbered.

Phishing expedition

I finally decided to get serious about trying to find us a place to rent in Germany, in my completely overpriced hometown where apartments are as rare as big gold nuggets in the Sierra Nevada.

Denizen of Silicon Valley that I am I think but one thing when wanting to rent, buy, sell, do, communicate, anything really and that is: “Internet”.  Suffice it to say that the majority of people in my home town have to yet arrive in the 21st Century.  They do use computers, of course, and surf the net and send emails (occasionally, typical response time to an email has dropped to several days after being one – two weeks for a long time, along the lines of “I check my email every Wednesday afternoon.”  What?? I check my email every 15 minutes and I am using Skype and a variety of other IM services on top – but that is a post for another day) – but they never seem to be doing anything serious online (except buying stuff).

This isn’t going to be easy – and here I thought the Bay Area is a difficult place to find a place to rent/buy. Pic: porchlightrental.com

So the first website I visited was Craigslist.  I know, so Californian of me.  I could have saved myself the typing, Germans don’t use it.  I posted an ad on the LinkedIn list of my hometown universities alumni group – could have saved myself that typing, too.  Not one answer, nada, zilch.  I checked the members and wasn’t surprised when I saw where they all live – I’d say 75% of them live abroad.

Real estate sites – yeah, listings, email addresses, places to request info.  So I type, and, guess what, I could have saved myself the typing.  No response, none, nada, ever.

Then I found a site for people wanting to rent or rent out sabbatical homes.  Great, so I check Germany and what do I find, listings, like 70.  68 in Berlin, 1000 km away, one in Munich, one in some random other place.

Surely the local university must have an electronic board, buy/sell, rent, looking for tennis partner type stuff – no such luck.  Unless you count the student only, room for sublet type listing.

I finally found a site that looked promising and so I posted a “looking for apartment to rent” ad and imagine my surprise when the next morning I find a reply.  A furnished apartment in a part of town I know – not the best by a big margin, but whatever.  I reply right back ask for number of rooms, square footage and all the other good stuff and get an email back which makes me wonder.  “You sound so nice”, a few pictures, one bedroom, a living room, a bath and info such as “my parents are currently in London and want to rent out as soon as possible”.  When do you want to rent?  Lots of irrelevant tidbits, no answer to the number of bedrooms or the square footage.  I write back again, asking for the pertinent info emphasizing that I need at least 2 bedrooms and telling her that we want to move in in July, not exactly soon.  The next email convinces me that this is a scam: another bedroom has materialized seemingly out of thin air, no comment about the move in data but details about wiring money for first months rent and deposit, and curiously, a copy of an Italian  passport and a glam head shot, apparently of our fake landlady Serena.

Now, I know that infamous Nigerian money scam and always wondered how people could fall for it.  And now here we have the Italian-German rental apartment scam and thankfully I didn’t fall for it, but they had me there for a while.  I guess if you just want something bad enough you might just be an easy prey.

I guess I am going to have to do this the old-fashioned way: calling people up!

Aftermath

The aftermath of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting rampage couldn’t be uglier, more disgusting and any more telling if a bunch of people got together and made it their mission to dream up the ugliest, most disgusting and most telling reponse possible.

One would think that 26 dead would make the most hardened gun nut consider, whether changes might be necessary to what are ludicrously lax gun laws.  One would think, alas …

After a week of silence the NRA came out with what I consider easily the most deluded idea in decades by saying that the way of dealing with gun violence in US schools is to have armed guards stationed in schools.  Not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined anybody ever coming up with that.  I should have, they mean it.  There is so much wrong with this notion that I wouldn’t know where to start debunking it if I tried, in the end, I decided not to even try, because you can’t logically argue with deluded people.  One thing, though, is worth mentioning: it does not work.  Fort Hood, a military installation where in 2009 a gun man killed 13 and wounded 29 is the only proof I need for the effectiveness of armed personnel in a shooting (yes, the shooting apparently took place in a gun-free zone but you’d still expect the military to be able to muster some kind of response  quickly and efficiently).

The most deluded of them all, a certified nut case by the name of Wayne La Pierre, a Vice President at the NRA just made a laughing stock (although nobody is laughing given the seriousness of the situation) of himself on national TV by claiming that it would not have made any difference to the death toll if the shooter did not have a clip with 30 rounds of ammo, but only five.  My 8 year old can grasp that concept without difficulty.  Not so Mr. LaPierre.

So what are these mad men (and women) fighting for: allegedly the Second Amendment, that is the right to bear arms.  As much as I, as a bleeding heart European Liberal, think that guns don’t belong in the hands of civilians, complete gun control will not happen in this country, not in my life time and presumably not in the lifetime of my boy either.  So, and that is the critical point, nobody with any power in this country is pushing for a complete ban of guns.  What is under discussions are modifications such as:

• an assault rifle ban – assault rifles are those, that chamber a new round after each shot making it possible to shoot in rapid succession.  Those guns were developed by the military for combat situations when they realized that in combat situations soldiers did not aim very well (surprise, surprise) and just sort of shot in the general direction of the enemy.  Assault rifles solve that problem by giving the soldier the option to just blanket an area with shots under the assumption that one will hit.  And now can anybody please explain to me why a civilian would need such a gun?  For which purpose other than inflicting maximal casualty in minimal time??  Seriously, anybody has any suggestion?  And don’t say hunting because I won’t believe that the hunter’s goal is to make minced meat off the prey right in the wilderness.
• smaller ammo clips.  As mentioned above, to anybody with the intellect exceeding that of an average 3 year old it is clear that 30 rounds have the potential to inflict 6 times as much damage as 5 rounds.  It is the same with rocks, really, or Lego blocks used for tossing, or even pillow fights – the more ammo you have, the more hits you land, even if you don’t aim very well.
• Closing loop holes in background checks – yes, allegedly their are background checks but only if you buy the gun at a store, you buy from an unlicensed dealer, or at a gun show – no background check required.  In which universe does that make sense?  Maybe somebody should introduce legislation to the effect that drugs are only illegal when bought on street corners but if you sell them at an official drug show it is fine.

Shocking to me, also, is the ferocity with which people defend their guns and the paranoia into which they fall as soon as somebody as much as suggests that it might be time to start potentially considering certain small limitations to the all out gun craziness in this country.  Even on some of the liberal blogs I read there are those high-pitched voices screaming that the government is going to take all their guns away and that that would be the end of the world as we know it and civilization and that the enemy who lurks out there, armed to the teeth is just waiting for that moment.

I was thinking what possible could instill such paranoia in Germans and I didn’t come up with anything, really.  The closest would be a comprehensive speed limit on the Autobahn which would cause a huge outcry.  But the reality is, most stretches of the Autobahn have a speed limit imposed anyway, not even that comparison is valid.

So, I am still trying to grasp the psychological underpinnings of this gun craziness – and am utterly failing so far.

Glass Half Empty

This very typically little story happened to me just the other day and I thought it was, well, very typical of the difference in culture between the US and Germany.  So here it goes.

General German sentiment: things will be worse tomorrow and even worse later.

I am on the LinkedIn Alumni list of my old/first university, the one in Germany.  As you might or might not know alumni relations is rather new to Germany, and in general people graduate and then pretty much forget about their universities.  So when they slowly started building closer relationship with their alumni I felt honor bound to at least sign up and participate.  The group is not very active but every once in a while an interesting post comes along which is worth reading and commenting on.

So the other day I saw that somebody had posted a ranking of “new” universities (those less than 50 years old) and my good old – or should I say new – university secured a spot among the top 15.  Pretty darn good, I thought for a small university in a provincial town in southern Germany.  I commented positively and tweeted the article.  Exactly the behavior that is expected from and commended in every good American.

The reaction I got should not have surprised me but still it did: the next person responding to my comment basically wrote: it ain’t all that great, in 5 years the university will not be “New” anymore and where will that leave us?  On the list of all universities this places is only “whatever not so stellar number) and the German universities in general aren’t doing so well, worse than the Dutch, blablabla, etc.

How very German!  Instead of focusing on the positive, the good ranking now and thinking that we have a few years to improve the overall ranking the focus is on the bad, the negative, the problem.  Maybe the typical American focus on the forever positive outlook, the incessant “everything will be alright” attitude is not realistic and at times outright annoying but the relentless focusing on the negative, the automatic assumption that whatever can go wrong will go wrong and that it is downhill from here is depressing. Why is that the automatic negative reaction, why forever focus on the bad?

I hate to say it, but it seems almost German nature.

Tragedy

Yesterday a seemingly healthy and – from what we read and hear in the news – exceptionally smart 20 year old grabbed three guns and shot 27 people – 20 elementary school kids among them – in a small, affluent little town in Upstate New York.

Some facts about guns, pic: http://www.thenation.com/article/169295/gun-control-dream#

This tragedy is incomprehensible and hits especially close to home for us as we have a kid in elementary school, too – albeit across the country.  But outside the shock and sadness I feel and the deep empathy for the family members whose lives are destroyed as mine would be if my son was murdered, I feel rage and despair and a deeper disconnect from this country as I have ever felt.

In the wake of this tragedy what we hear is the call to stand firm by the Second Amendment clause giving the people of this country to right to bear arms.  What we hear are the same old stupid lines repeated such as “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and “we need to get the crazies off the street, then these things wouldn’t happen.”  This phrase were stupid and superficial and  deeply hurtful even in the instances of shootings where the gunman was somebody who struggled with mental health issues.  In all those recent cases of  “crazies” shooting up schools and movie theaters, apparently the system failed to keep people who – after the fact where called crazy or mentally ill – from buying guns.  In all cases the system failed to recognize the severity of the mental health issues in people and to get them off the street and to provide them with help.   Curiously enough, the same people who want no gun control also often hate the government and want to “starve the beast (of government)” thereby effectively doing away with organized mental health treatment options.

This case, though,  is different again.  The guy wasn’t crazy, or maybe he was but there were no signs unless you count being shy and very smart as crazy (in which case I know a lot of crazy people).  Even if we got every single person worrying about alien invasions, speaking incoherently to themselves or drawing pictures of bombs off the street this tragedy would have happened.  The only thing that could have prevented this is if the guy did not have access to a number of guns and ammunition.

He could have still killed, that is another lame argument by the gun lovers, with a knife, or an ax or a dagger.  True, he could have, maybe a few people before being overpowered or running out of steam.  I have no personal experience with this but it seems logical that killing with a distance weapon like a semi-automatic gun is entirely different from stabbing somebody to death or running after somebody with an ax.

The reactions across the political spectrum was interesting.  Most notable I found that the right wing press (which I sometimes read to try and understand how the other side is thinking ) has ignored the shooting to a large extent or argue that God let this happen because people weren’t pious enough.  Red State.com saw fit to bemoan the fact that as a nation we only come together during events like this shooting rather than for happy occasions like sporting events.  Seriously, is that all you have to say in a situation like this, “let’s applaud our Olympics gymnastics team more energetically”?  I won’t even comment on the highly offensive comments made but the ultra-right fringe, their God is way to hate- and revengeful to  pay any attention to.

Most shocking, though, I thought was some of the main stream reaction I saw on Facebook, etc.  “nothing will change”, “this is how it is”, “People will not give up their guns” etc.  20 kids and 7 adults are dead in an entirely preventable tragedy and the American people collective say a prayer for the families, hug their children and shrug their shoulders.  Where is the wide-spread outcry, where the demands to stop this madness?  Where is the horror over this and where the empathy for the victims and those who will inevitably follow behind?

I read an editorial in the New York Times, written by a father of a young man who was killed 20 years ago in a killing spree and who struggled and fought for gun control and eventually gave up realizing that Americans as a nation – not all individuals – seem to be willing to accept such tragedies as they price they have to pay to own and carry around their (concealed) guns.

What a terrible and disheartening testament.  What a cruel message to the families of the victims, these and the ones before and after, a message that says “what happened to you is bad and I sure wouldn’t want it to happen to me or the people I know but I accept that you pay the price so I can buy my 13 year old a semi-automatic weapon for his birthday.”

And this message, this fundamental disregard of life, this utter lack of empathy and sense for the greater good I struggle with more than with anything else in the country I have ever struggled with.

Destination Imagination – Or How to Stifle Creativity

I was wondering where to post this one, here or on my other blog called America explained (I admit, I am not lacking ambition), but decided to post it here.  Check out the other blog, though, if you are interested.

My son is a geek, he likes sciences and is good at math.  He is similar to his mom, who likes sciences – and isn’t all that great at math.  This year we signed him up for a program called Destination Imagination (in short DI) which is a nationwide contest in which teams complete a challenge – often engineering-related but for variety there are also plays and more social type challenges.

The not so creative creativity contest. pic: hongkiat.com

We liked the idea of elementary school kids using their imagination and creativity to solve problems.  That is the theory.  The practice is – the opposite.  The team of youngsters has to pick one of five challenges, if it was me the challenge would be something like: “build three small cars propelled by different mechanisms which can go a predetermined distance.”  I might add something like “Don’t use nuclear power to propel them.”

In real life the challenges reads something like: “build three small cars propelled by different mechanisms which can go a predetermined distance.” and then follow about 10 pages (literally) in 8 point print detailing every last aspect of the challenge.  The size of the care down to the quarter inch, how much it can cost, what materials can be used and not used, how much the vehicle can wobble and still be considered running smoothly – a condition.  Also the cars don’t just have to go a predetermined distance, they have to follow some excruciatingly detailed path inside a 20′ x 20′ feet square in which certain areas are marked off.  The ways to propel the cars are spelled out (so much about thinking creatively) and everything that is fun is explicitly forbidden.  Geek mom that I am my first thought was “firecracker tied to car”.  I thought it was brilliant – but, of course, the Safety Rules prohibit that.

Not only spell the rules every aspect of the challenge out , they are also subject to repeated revisions and so the parents will enjoy immensely the opportunity to compare different versions at various times and adjust the project.  Wait, the parents are not supposed to participate at all other than in a facilitator’s role (basically keeping the kid’s from smashing each others’ heads in)  – so the 8 year olds seem to be expected to read the rules, understand them and act accordingly.  No idea in what universe the people who came up with this live.  One thing is sure, thought, they do not have kids and where born middle-aged.

Somehow this whole mess is in some ways indicative of – and here I can’t speak for all of the US but certainly for the engineering driven culture of Silicon Valley – where creativity seem to be to follow very detailed rules and dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.  The challenges couldn’t be more contrary to their alleged purpose if they tried.   To us it is painful to read the rules and see the kids struggle with trying solve the challenge, have some fun and stay within the narrow confines of the rules of this alleged contest in creativity and imagination.

If it was just my son I would encourage him to use a firecracker and a few more things that sparkle, bang and stink – even if it means he gets disqualified, at least he would have some fun and go out with a bang.  But as a member of a team of little geeks we’ll play by the rules.  Just this year, next year I am thinking of a challenge myself.