Las Vegas

I risk dating myself here but I’ll say it anyway: the last time I visited Las Vegas before this trip was in the early 90s.   I didn’t like it then, but it provided a certain amount of fun and entertainment and it was cheap, which then , traveling on a tight student’s budget was worth something in and by itself.

This place ain’t for me. Pic: discoverthetrip.com

This time I absolutely hated the place and couldn’t wait to get out.  I know I am in the minority on this one, vastly outnumbered by people who love Vegas and everything about it.  But, seriously, what is there about it?

What bothered me most the first time around (just like in Disneyland, btw) is the fakeness of it all.  This is probably my German side – forever seeking for authenticity – that is so strongly reacting to fake Eiffel Towers, fake Venetian canals, fake Statues of Liberty, fake everything.  I remember about 10 years later – I was by then living in California – a colleague of mine taking a long weekend trip to Vegas where she staid at the Venetian coming back to work and marveling about Vegas in general and the hotel in particular “just like Venice, only cleaner” were her words.  The words of somebody, I might add, who had never set foot into Europe.  One thing is true, the streets in Venice are dirtier than the halls of the hotel, but they are streets, not hallways kept spotless by an army of underpaid mostly Mexican cleaners.  But anyway, that was then.

This time I was prepared for the fakeness and willing to try to just go with the flow and enjoy it.  But this time the problem was a different one, it was what Umberto Eco describes in his Travels through Hyperreality so very aptly with the words “behind the facades lurks a sales pitch”.  And that is exactly it, Vegas has become a expensive make-believe luxury destination for those who can’t afford the real thing and unlike before one pays dearly for that illusion.  With the exception of parking and the spectacles some casinos put up, e.g. a fake volcano eruption every half hour starting at 5 pm,  everything in Vegas is expensive and wherever you turn somebody wants to sell you something.  Now maybe there are still cheap lunch buffets in parts of town where one doesn’t want to be, serving food that one does not care to eat, but at our Hotel at the Strip we spent almost $70 for a three Pho soup lunch with tea and a soda – I can get this in Silicon Valley for $25.  The da Vinci exhibition at a hotel was $52 for the three of us – that was after we used a 40% off coupon – and it was okay, not great.  What irked me was that they were trying to upsell us on some cheesy picture of us taken in front of a green wall with brushes in our hand that came out looking like we were painting the Last Supper.   I mean, seriously …

The other thing that disturbed me was the vengeance with which the hordes of people embraced this whole spectacle of conspicuous over-consumption.  Huge alcoholic drinks in silly shaped plastic containers where hauled around on the street (and not just by 21 year olds – that I would understand but by people in their 40s and 50s), as well as  shopping bags (do other cities not have the usual array of clothing stores?), people dressed up (or tried to) walking around in the silliest combinations and I have seen more than a reasonable share of naked legs in sandals at around 0 to 5 degrees Celsius – with other words: freezing temperatures.  I think we were the only people on new Years Eve not wearing a 2013 tiara, other head gear, glasses, necklaces, whatever.  Everything is about consuming more and more, everything needs to be bigger, everybody seems to want to outclass the rest, live the high life, be fake-rich and show it off.

Okay, I am am done now.  I won’t go back if I can at all avoid it.  Maybe somebody who has been to Vegas and liked it can try and explain to me what you see in it.  I can’t wrap my mind around it.

Road Trip, Part II

Darwin Falls, just outside Death Valley National Park at the very end of a Canyon, pic: mine

I love National Parks, Monuments, Forests, whatever – they are grand, wonderful places with unique landscapes – or as in the case of Death Valley it seems more like a moonscape – stunning views, and sights that can simply not be found anywhere else in that abundance and perfection.

National Parks are also wonderful places for people watching – believe it or not.  How people approach National Parks is rather interesting.  Let’s leave aside for a moment those, who do not ever visit National or State or any other Parks and focus on those who go.  There are a few noteworthy types.  One type I always marvel about are the Indian ladies in their saris and sandals.  Now that makes sense in summer in Death Valley but I have seen them in the middle of winter at Lassen National Park, walking on what must have been 8 feet of snow.  So here I am in an undershirt, a t-shirt, a sweat shirt, a light jacket and a down jacket and three pairs of socks in my sturdiest hiking boots on snow shoes and there they are in a sari, a knit cardigan and strappy sandals.   I saw them again in Death Valley – and mind you in an unseasonably cold December temps where close to freezing.  I shiver just thinking about this choice of outerwear.

Another type are the gear heads.  They are predominantly male and seem to hail from all races.  We were puttering around the sand duns in Death Valley – a smallish area in the bigger scheme of the park, where mainly families go so the kids can play in the wonderfully fine sand and roll down the dunes – and there I saw two guys, decked out like on a Himalaya expedition hiking (walking really) into the dunes.  We are talking 2 pm and they have head lamps at the ready, hiking poles in both hands, performance clothing, water for days, backpacks large enough to have food for a three course meal plus wine and digestives in them.  And I wonder whether this is because they actually believe that leaving the car in a places as inhospitable as Death Valley is a virtual death sentence or whether they just like to buy gear.  I think it is the later, judging from the males in my life ….

The type that puzzles me are the rest area only visitors – which I think is by far the largest group.  They basically drive from vista point (as we call it in California) to vista point, preferring those with pick-nick tables and/or views of waterfalls.  They seem to make it a rule to never walk more than 200 feet after they are out of the car, then they have a quick glance around, take a dozen pictures or so and retreat to the car to drive to the next point of interest.  Daring things, like actual walks/hikes are not on the program.

Then there are the like so us, who actually hike, ideally to the end of the canyon, even if it is blocked by boulders, or icy areas.  Our rule of thumb has been for years now that you loose about 80-90% of the people for the first  mile you go.  So of 100 only 10-20 will still be with you at the 1 mile marker. After that, the attrition rate is lower, as these are often pretty determined individuals but I would still put it at about 50%.  So you do the math but one thing is for sure, it does not take terribly long to be almost alone.

Every once in a big while you come across an extreme hiker, one of those “crossing the Sierras with a daypack” guys, who have been on the road – or rather path – for days and look unwashed but exceedingly fit and healthy.  Those I envy a bit, as I can’t put up with that level of discomfort just to be able to say “I crossed the Sierra Nevada in winter on skies.”

But whatever the visitors – National Parks are amazing places!

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.

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.

The Great American Indoors

Me, in a restaurant in California during the summer, pic: http://foodtrainers.blogspot.com/2010/12/shiver-yourself-skinny.html

There is something very strange about the American indoors for a European such as myself and here is what it is:  on a random hot Silicon Valley summer day my family might decide to have dinner in a nearby restaurant.  I am in shorts and sleeveless T-shirt so I go to my closet and get a pair of long pants, a T-shirt with sleeves and a cardigan.  I also pack a jacket for my son and ask him to put on socks.

I am not crazy, I am just going to a restaurant with air-conditioning which will be keeping the room at a nice and steady 60 degrees Fahrenheit which for me, especially when sitting instead of moving, is right around the temperature where my toes start to lose any feeling and any uncovered spot of skin shows a serious case of goose-bumps.

Fast forward to winter – not that dramatic in lovely California – so let’s fast forward to winter in Boston, where I used to live.  It is cold, so you layer: underwear, t-shirt, sweater, maybe cardigan and a down jacket, hat, gloves, two pairs of socks and lined boots.  Then you walk, let’s say to the next T station (subway), enter and proceed more than 10 steps form the entrance where you start ripping the down jacket off.  By the time you get to the platform and then into the train you will have ripped off pretty much every piece of clothing that can be ripped off without getting the police involved and sweat is running down your back.   As you leave the subway the process reverses itself at a frantic pace;  sweater over the head, cardigan on, down jacket on top, sweat running down the back and then the onslaught of cold air.  Five minutes later you enter the office building and start peeling of again in a lovely 80 degree environment.

I have never quite understood why we have to have winter temperatures in summer and summer temperatures in winter.  If I have to sweat, I’d prefer to sweat in summer.  If I have to freeze, then winter would be the time to do so.  It would save a lot of energy and I wouldn’t have to have my entire wardrobe available year around.

Self-Reliance

If I only had one word to characterize Americans “self-reliance” would be it.   It describes the heart and soul of America – as well as many of its (current political) excesses.

okay, a climber on a mountain top is plenty cliche but still expresses the idea quite well. Pic: skyscanner.net

Self-reliance is defined as “reliance on one’s own capabilities, judgment, or resources” and that is what I observe here every day and what attracted me to this country from the very start.  Back then it was more of a gut feeling, I left business school and just knew that the US would be the country which offered the better opportunities, that this would be the country where I could be successful and people would applaud me for it, not begrudge me my success.

As annoying the whole “everything will be alright” mantra is when heard too many times -especially in situations where things appear so hopeless that you can’t believe anything will ever be alright again – it is by far a better attitude then complaining, whining or surrendering.  As cliche the “glass half full” saying might be it is nevertheless true.  In America the glass is always half full, the sun will always rise again and – eventually, you just believe me – everything will be alright.

Overall this is an endearing quality that might come across as a tad naive to jaded Europeans when in fact it is just the expression of a very strong and fundamental belief that, indeed, everything will be alright.  It is not just lip service but in its core the conviction that everybody can get up and start over.

That is the good part of self-reliance.  The part that made it possible for this country to be settled by immigrants who crossed snow peaked mountains in rickety wagons and trekked across endless deserts with not much more than their determination to make it (leaving the discussion about how native American were mistreated aside for the moment).

Then there is a very dark side to self-reliance.  The one we are seeing now so openly and unabashedly displayed by the Republican party.  The point where self-reliance crosses the line to social Darwinism (interestingly enough often the loudest proponents of Social Darwinism by whatever name are the same people that call Evolution “The Monkey Theory” and insist their kids are taught creationism in school).

As much as I applaud self-reliance and the will to get up and try again one cannot cast aside everybody who for some reason or another is unable to do so as “unworthy”.  There is historical precedent for it and as I German – although even my parents where too young to have any part in that period of our history – I know a thing or two about it.

A society is only worth that label if it is willing to take care of and support its weakest.  Even after 200+ years history of living, breathing and preaching self reliance not everybody has the health, education, or strength to get up and try harder.   Not everybody can be an entrepreneur, investment banker (God forbid) or run Bain Capital.  And it is okay, we don’t need that many people who run Bain Capital but we need many people to do the ordinary stuff in life and we need to provide them with enough security that if they stumble and fall – which is entirely human – there is a cane to help them get up.

Self reliance is a valuable and admirable quality – taken to the extreme it is a vile and inhuman philosophy which, I had hoped, would never rear its ugly head again.

Once you are gone …, part 2

I argued before that after 10 years (or so) one doesn’t belong to the place where on came from anymore but somehow 10 years (or so) aren’t enough to truly belong where one moved to either.  This, too, is sad but true.

When I moved to Boston in 1997 I felt I belonged within three days.  Almost 15 years later, I know I never will.  I can’t quite say why or how that is, just that it is a fact.  In school I belonged because we all somehow did through our shared experience but later I realized that I am not an American, never will be and that this will set me apart forever.  Despite 15 years here, 12 in the Bay Area (admittedly more than many Americans spend here) I am lacking the cultural background and experiences people who grew up here share.  Sounds trivial?  Maybe, but somehow it is important to be able to talk about the girl scout days, that TV show in the 70s, and crack those jokes so much based in the culture of a country that I can learn, but never truly understand – or pull off.

I can simply not speak about my cheer-leading days not just because I never was a cheerleader (which I wouldn’t have been) but also because something even remotely like cheer-leading simply did not exist (and still doesn’t to the best of my knowledge whatever that is worth these days), not did homecoming or formal dances.  I wore my first long gown at the wedding of an – American – friend in LA.   I can of course, crack jokes about Star Trek – but only in German as I have hardly seen any episodes in English (and my English is very good, if I do say so myself, so it is not lack of vocabulary).

Where does that leave me – an observer, an astute one able to learn but still an observer.

So maybe that is just who I am, an observer, somebody who doesn’t really belong anywhere and for that reason might be the perfect person to live in the Bay Area, a place where most people who live here didn’t grow up and therefore don’t belong.  maybe the sense of not belonging makes us kindred spirits.

This realization makes me nervous about spending a year in German, what if I really don’t belong there and find few people who likewise don’t belong.  I guess, we’ll see.

Left Coast of the Country

California – the beautiful “left coast” of the country, pic: geology.com

I live in Silicon Valley and that choice of location seems to reflect my political leanings very well: I am a liberal from the left coast – and with that tend to fall into the category “socialist” or even “commie” for most of the rest of the nation.  When I go back to Germany my political views put me squarely with the CDU, that is, the center-right party, not the social democrats (this realization came to me as a shock as all my life I considered myself a social democrat but the reality just does not support that claim anymore).  I say “center-right” with the utmost caution because that party is still to the left of where the modern day democrats are in the US, at least on things like social welfare issues.

So every time I cross the Atlantic somehow I am morphing – mostly unbeknownst to me – into a different person, the bleeding heart liberal turns into a social hard ass who thinks, for example, that it is unfair and counterproductive to provide as many incentives as Germany does for people to remain unemployed and to exploit the system.

When here in the US,  on the other hand, we get in trouble for voicing radical opinions like that a society should be able and willing to care for its weakest and most frail without asking “What have you done for me lately?”, without telling them to get their shit together and stop being a parasite on society and without any hint to any religion.

Maybe that explains why our answer to the question “where do you live?” when somebody in Germany or actually Europe asks us always is “California”.  Occasionally – when I have the impression I am dealing with somebody geographically advanced – I will say  “San Francisco Bay Area” or “Silicon Valley”.  However, never will I say America or the United States.

It would just raise too many questions.

Here and There

Here are a few pictures from California and Germany – here and there.