This is the end of my travel log (not of my weblog, of course). I travelled 32 cities in 12 states. And I took my trip as some sort of roadwork which enabled me to meet wonderful people, visit interesting places, receive a very diverse impression of the U.S. as an assembly of cultures, traditions and lifestyles. One part of this roadwork is done now. But there is still a construction site left that will remain part of my life. Not in terms of bricks and mortar that have to be smoothed out but in terms of observation and contemplation.
When I look back to all the experiences and observations that shaped my stay in the USA I realize quite clearly that there is a part of this country with a landscape that really changes your perception. The vast and harsh dimension of the sandy plain and the rocky bens of the Texas Mountain Trail reduce the point of view of the observer to a thin line: the horizon. Below and above the horizon a space dilates. And in between there is this sharp line of perception that reduces the observer’s point of view to a single deep cut into endlessness.
What opens up below and above is a range of thoughts, insights and feelings that can pave their way into ones mind and awareness and spread out in a room that might have never been opened up like this before. Below this horizon there is a history of experiences, encounters, thoughts and feelings that suddenly become clear and sharpen in their outline and relevance. Some become prevalent, some are disguised as marginal. And there also emerges another space above the horizon where you can compose your reflections to new patterns, build connections between people and things never related before.
What happens in these moments? The observer’s point of view is concentrated on the thin line of the horizon and freed from all distractions. As a deep cut trough the differences of past and future it reduces the complexity of the present. In some moments this can be a frightening experience, a sad one sometimes as well. But it might also be an extraordinary auspicious moment in life.
I liked this experience very much. It was like turning off the auto focus of my mind and brain that normally helps me to locate the tasks and challenges of daily life routine without wasting too much energy (and therefore sometimes also distracts me from detecting the periphery that might even be more interesting and challenging). In any case it’s a unique moment of reflection that becomes part of the space below and above the deepest cut.
This is it. This will remain. And this opens up doors that appear along the way of life. I will have to decide whether to pass or bypass them. And in the first place …
… which door … ?
]]>Observing the U.S. as a German I will even as a member of the after World War II generation always remember how the USA helped to re-establish Germany (at least the Western part of it). The Marshall plan comes to ones mind as well as the airlift to the airport Berlin Tempelhof that Berlin now finally manages to close in spite of all its historic meaning. These things among others contributed to the myth of a country that can fix problems and will always play a leadership role in the world.
After two months of travelling providing for me the opportunity to talk to a lot of Americans and to learn what they think of their own country I have realized: It might not even be the image of the USA which suffered most by the Bush administration as well as a sometimes awkward, sometimes rule breaking public diplomacy. It’s the self perception of the American people that was disarranged and shattered in many ways.
That is reflected in the polls. PEW Research Center reports that the approval rate for the federal government gets a decade low of 37 percent. Concurrently President Bush’s approval rating reaches an all-time low of 27 percent and only 22 percent of the population are satisfied with how the things are going in the country. Translation: Two third of the American people think that their country is on the wrong track. Wow!
There might be three major reasons for that I have learned about in the plenty of conversations I had for the last two months.
The Iraq war. With a death toll of more than 4.000 people and no end in sight most Americans have understood that something went wrong out there. Listening to Hillary Clinton promising that she will bring the troops back in six weeks after having taken presidency a lot of listeners just raise their eyebrows. There is no exit plan. And secretly everybody knows: there won’t be one at short sight. This war has scattered a big portion of optimism of the American people and it has ruined a big part of the ideal of freedom and democracy that has always been linked to the U.S. Because the Bush administration violated constitutional rights in a variety of ways and issued rules that allowed a treatment of a person – be it a suspect, a prisoner or a terrorist – that amounts to torture by pretty much any definition except the Bush administration’s.
The economic decline. A lot of people are hit by the mortgage crisis and have left their homes because they are simply no longer able to pay the rates. And economy doesn’t seem to catch up soon. The Dollar has lost its position as lead currency and the necessary infrastructure investments are postponed. After a visit to Europe and Asia these weeks the author Thomas Friedman describes his observations in an article for The New York Times: “If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.”
One of the most extensive shocks was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. Why is that? Because the other drivers of decay in self -confidence are either related to foreign, i.e. exterior politics or to influencing factors that are not just or not directly combined with the creative power of the U.S. themselves. Katrina and its aftermath were.
The victims of the Hurricane and the floods could have been saved. But they weren’t. The people from New Orleans could have been helped. But they weren’t. Instead people were kept in the Superdome for almost five days without food and water, not knowing what would happen to them. New Orleans could have been rebuilt and the displaced people brought back to their homes. But that didn’t happen. The Federal Government screwed the whole crisis management up in an unbelievable way. That’s what can be heard today very often. The people in New Orleans speak up telling it, others don’t. Why not?
This disaster – man made not a natural one – holds up a mirror every day that shows a reflection of the U.S. a lot of people don’t want to see. They don’t want to cope with the cognition that it were their country’s own people that were left on their own. They don’t want to face the fact that Katrina not only wiped out New Orleans but also the myth of the ‘can do’ country. America could fix it. That was held true for a long time. Iraq did quite a damage to this image. But it’s different to fail in a country far away than to fail in the midst of one’s own country.
]]>There are so many opportunities, various routes we can take, diverse buttons we can press to initiate a process that might take us where we want to get to. But we can never foresee where we will wind up. This is a lesson for the simplifying-their-life kind of guys as well as for the control freaks. Life can’t be controlled. The only thing we might partly be in control of is our reactions to things that happen. And even this can be questioned for various reasons.
The most simply way to experience this is trying to access the fitness center in the UN Millenium Plaza Hotel in New York. During my last stay I had learned that I have to take one of the two elevators on the right hand side, not the two on the left hand side. This morning I gladly remembered this and pressed the ‘down’ button.
Of course, the left elevator stopped and the door opened. There was nobody in there. So I waited until the door closed again and the elevator would assumingly have left on its way to some other floor. Then I pressed the ‚down’ button again. The same elevator opened again. As there was no other person requesting this elevator, it just obstinately stayed on my floor and kept all the other elevators from stopping.
I have often wondered how much logistics and software have to be implemented in these elevator systems. Today I have learned: This whole thing has to be planned very accurately and obviously in this hotel they didn’t deliberate this problem to all extends. I went on with this procedure for quite a while and started to become desperate.
Then I developed the idea to outsmart this left elevator. As the door opened again I went in, pressed ‘lobby’ and went out again. Now the elevator was finally gone. I smiled. I pressed the ‘down’ button once more and was extremely convinced that one of the two right elevators would stop now. Don’t even think of it. Instead the second elevator on the left opened and out stepped a room maid. ‘”This is the 36th floor” she said. “I know” I helplessly called. “I am staying on this floor for quite a while now, but I want to go to the fitness center.” “You have to take one of the elevators on the right” she said. I almost fainted. “I KNOW”, I screamed, “but they just won’t stop for me. What am I supposed to do???”
“Keep on trying”, the room maid said, smiled, and disappeared into the same elevator she had stepped out before. What a sage advice that does not only apply for coping with elevators but for coping with life.
]]>There was this song by “Dance to Trance” in 1998 which was called “Power of the American Natives”. It’s not exactly the musical quality of this song that made me remember it these days but a visit to the Navajo Nation – the Indian settlement that embraces parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. With approximately 250.000 inhabitants it is the largest Indian tribe in the U.S.
The federally recognized tribe got the land 1868 as a compensation for the historical trauma of displacement and brutal suppression. They maintain a good relationship with the federal government – no less but also no more. “The tribes talk to us, they don’t trust us. Which is a reasonable approach considering history” says Bill Hume, Director of Planning and Policy in the office of the Governor of New Mexico.
Driving through parts of the land it becomes pretty obvious that this is one of the very poor parts of the U.S. And maybe the one least globalized. This was the only region I travelled where you couldn’t find a Starbucks coffee (though there was McDonalds).
The statistics emphasize this impression: With a poverty rate of 40 percent, one third of the population without electricity and an unemployment rate that is said to be around 50 percent (some observers estimate it up to 80 percent) it is probably not a region people would imagine as their preferred place to stay.
And that’s not what makes the Indians stay. They want to preserve their heritage and culture. Therefore they were given this land as well as the right of self-governance (secured by several treaties with the federal government). The Nation has a an 88 member popularly-elected council located in window rock. Visiting the council in session we can observe: the blessings of new technology have arrived: Most of the council members listen to their President while at the same time surfing the Web.
But innovation does not necessarily mean improvement. One of the sources of income – the most important one indeed – is gaming. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act from 1988 provided the right to the Indians to operate gaming. First seen as a real opportunity to develop their economy it became quickly clear that gaming is not just a blessing but also a burden. As there is a steady income stream from gaming a lot of young people don’t even think of education and striving for a good job.
And that is what makes the future of this tribal nation uncertain. The talented young people leave for education. And even if they want to come back they can’t. There are no jobs, no facilities and no business opportunities. What we can observe in the Navajo Nation is a dying diversity. It might take 50 more years but sometime in future it will probably become a nation without a people.
The poverty is one reason for that. Another one is hidden in the bureaucratic governance structures that have produced a mixture of very little private enterprise, poor economic incentives and a lack of entrepreneurial effort. Against this background we were not even really surprised by reading in the newspaper the next day that the Navajo government is planning to set up a new legislative building for 50 million US$.
In case of the Indians diversity is at stake. But diversity is not only about cherishing cultural heritage. It’s also about real politics and priorities.
]]>“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” – or yourself from the candidate of an election campaign. When I first tried to enter a Barack Obama campaign event in the pavilion of Headwaters Park in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I almost ended up at the entrance because of one single apple. A nice looking one, not at all dangerous at first sight (and my survival ration after a day of driving and solely eating pretzels again).
This apple was in my bag which was inspected closely by a female F.B.I agent. When she found the apple she said: “I am not supposed to let you take fruit in here.” I also hadn’t thought I was actually supposed to take fruit in. I had just thought it wouldn’t be a problem. But it was one of the bigger ones. The apple was supposed to stay out. So was I.
I started to bargain with the woman trying to tell how important this apple was to me and that I would swear not to throw it at Barack Obama nor do anything else endangering other people (which was not difficult to promise because I am such a bad pitcher that I wouldn’t have hit the candidate while standing right in front of him). She had no mercy (women are often much more merciless than men by the way). Finally she agreed upon me leaving the apple under the table of her search activity. It was an agreement filled with disgust and impatience on her side.
After Obama had spoken and the event was over I passed the entrance again and saw my apple was still under the table. I wanted to take it but the agent first refused. I already regret not to have put a name tag on the apple before leaving it under the table when she got distracted by searching my bag for the second time. It was on the table and so she thought somebody wanted to take it into the pavilion instead of taking it out. In this moment I rescued the apple. At the same time the agent found a very small nail file in my bag she had overlooked before. I expected something very serious to happen now. But the woman just put it back into my bag. I COULD HAVE TAKEN THE NAIL FILE IN while having been forced to leave the apple!
This is just a little proof that some prejudices are just true: Women don’t care about food. But they are full of understanding when it comes to cosmetics and nail care.
]]> The ‘You’-people
When you stroll along the streets of New Orleans you might happen to pass a small Christian community with a nice church. Right beside the church on a brick wall you see a large board with the names of 210 people written on it.
he first row was printed the further names are added in handwriting with a marker. These are the names of the New Orleans murder victims of 2007.
It is an unsettling observation, especially because most of the names mention African-American males between 18 and 30. Somebody must have hung the board there. It was the pastor of the community. And he can well explain why he and his team did so. “People have to notice that this crime rate is outrages”, he tells. “That’s why we have put the board out there.” During the first days the people of the neighbourhood got upset. They didn’t want to be obviously linked to crime and murder. Then the attitude of a lot of people slowly started to change. Mothers of murder victims approached the priest and thanked him because finally her dead sons were given a name. They became publicly visible through this act of witnessing the pastor enabled by putting out this board.
What did it tell to the community? “Poverty is the prime engine behind violence”, the priest explains, “coming along with the total disruption of the patterns of cultural and social life in this city”. This disruption has started early when the Interstate was build and the white people could move out to the nice suburbs to live there and commute into the city for work while the Blacks got stuck. And it experienced a final big boost through Hurricane Katrina. “A lot of people in this city feel abandoned”, farther Luis says. And those who do not feel alike don’t want to become part of this. “They make them them, not us.” They exclude and thereby segregate. And so they pretend that this violence is restricted to a special group of people who does it to themselves and it is their problem.
This is one story of the ‘you’ people in the USA. People who are regarded as belonging to a different group than oneself (“you people are different from us”). People who are expected to behave differently (“you people always do these things”). People who are patronized by others instead of helped (“you people have to …”). It seems to be a story of the ‘you’ people, but it is also the story of the ‘we’ people. We all suffer from violence and crime and disintegration. Our community does as well as our society.
One of the captions of the civil rights movement in the U.S. goes: “Movements do not begin with movements. Movements begin with individuals.” That is as true today as it was decades ago. It’s not a story about the ‘you’ people, it’s one about the ‘we’ people who have to be addressed.
]]>There were times when pickpockets and loose women were regarded as likely bad for one’s health, reputation and overall existence. Since then things have supposedly changed a bit and become more liberal – in terms of sexual relations. This might turn out as a theoretical assumption in some parts of the USA. I have tried (without crossing lines of course …).
First of all it depends on a body culture that does not perceive the naked as something frightful in principle. Here the problem starts. Try to let a small child play naked on the beaches of San Francisco (!) It won’t take long till somebody will have called the police urging you to dress the child (you better get dressed yourself before they arrive, otherwise it might become expensive or at least a bigger hassle).
Second, try to use a sauna (if you find one at all) not wearing a bathing suit (it’s more healthy not to do so, because you are supposed to sweat which is much easier if not wrapped in a plastic cloth). You will feel like the major cast in a film about outlaws and sometimes even treated as such.
What’s going on? As I visited Harvard I sat in a Peet’s coffee having my afternoon double shot latte and reading the New York Times Magazine. Inside a big story on Ivy League students abstaining from sex before marriage. I heard and read about that before. What struck me was that these were the intelligent young people at the best universities who voted for abstinence. I have always regarded a decent experience in this delicate but important part of life as a necessary part of personal development and life learning. But for some people this seems to be a weird attitude.
Strolling along the shelves of the Harvard Book Store I found a book about bad sex, pretending to tell about the better ways of doing it. At least somebody seems to read about it, I thought. Then I took a closer look. The book was about not making mistakes, providing patronizing advice by the elder ones: “We did it, so you won’t have to.” I got it! It’s not about avoiding mistakes. It’s about avoiding a mined field in the first place.
I haven’t bought the book by the way. I sometimes prefer to stick to cultural differences.
]]>After 23 years they will shuffle off their mortal coil – tells a postcard one of the waiters at Restaurant Florent in New York’s Meatpacking district hands out to the customers who haven’t heard yet.
The neighbourhood once poor and known for its slaughterhouses and packing plants has become one of the most popular neighbourhoods – the in place of New York’s dining, wining and nightclub scene.
In the 1990ths the process of transformation has started with some high end fashion boutiques, followed by fancy restaurants and lofts for the upper class people who were fed up with living in SoHo (which already went through this transformation process some earlier years and got a boring place to live in for those people always looking to be the first in the last place to make it last as a first place).
When Florent Morellet opened his restaurant at 69, Gansevoort Street, he was thrilled by the verve that swayed the Meatpacking district and though didn’t heed the fashion calls. “I decided to open a restaurant that if possible didn’t need any design; a place that was already in existence, and looked as though it had been, and would, be there forever,” he writes in a supplement to ‚The Villager’ on the 20th birthday of his restaurant in 2005. Eating at this place you can observe that he succeeded. There is plenty of atmosphere emerging from the staff and the customers, eating and chatting, and maintained by the idea of what happens at an original community place: a bunch of interesting people creating an atmosphere. Not a fashioned ambience trying to attract people.
Finally, this was not enough. Money drives. And that’s especially true for New York. After having struggled for years Florent has to give up end of June, The rent has quadrupled (from 15.000 $ to 60.000 $ per month) in the wake of the rising Meatpacking district as New York’s in place.
His restaurant has become a metaphor for a process that is discussed widely among sociologist with lots of emotions and intellectual engagement on all sides of the argumentation thread: the gentrification. The term describes a process in which deteriorated neighbourhoods attract different kinds of investments so that more and more middle and upper class people move in, houses are renovated and sold or rented for much higher prices. The whole neighbourhood and its parts increase in market value. And as one frequent result the former residents have to leave. They can no longer afford a living there.
One can interpret this as an urban renewal process. But it is often followed by segregation of groups of population in ‚ins’ and ‘outs’. The former mixed and often poor but creative people have gone. Upper class standardization moves in. When Florent opened up his restaurant as a place that „didn’t need any design”, a place that „looked as though it had been, and would be, there forever”, he could have talked about the whole Meatpacking district. And he indeed exactly talked about this process of changing neighbourhoods that become a beauty spot, but very boring. Diversity is missing where the new generally displaces the long-established.
If a person dies we go trough the five stages of loss: from denial to acceptance. That’s what they are doing at Florent till closing day. It will be the 28th of June, the day of acceptance. Walking along Gansevoort or other streets of the Meatpacking district I have to admit that I will probably stick to the fourth phase: depression.
]]>Didn’t I write a book about how to reduce complexity in every day life? Didn’t I write a whole chapter on how to cope with all these demands for making a choice and taking a decision?
And didn’t I allude to all these crazy ‘maximizers’ of our current time trying to get hold of each and every information as well as each and every consumer product that is supposed to make life easier but instead incriminates us with handling all this stuff and stresses us while attempting to get rid of it again?
Yes, I did.
And did I learn from that?
No, I didn’t.
Why do I have to be infected by this lousy virus of shopping greed each time I visit New York? Why am I thinking again and again that there is this one and only extraordinary jeans that I have to look for because it will change my life (t-shirts can not only changes lives but can change the world as I have learned from GAP these days)? And why am I not in the position to pass an ‘Abercrombie & Fitch” store without entering it?
This is even more crazy because these store are consumer unfriendly. I try to look for some nice clothes but can’t find them because the shop is almost completely dark. One can’t even figure out the colour of the t-shirts or pullovers. Therefore I have to ask a sales clerk if the shirt is green or red (I am not color-blind by the way, it’s really dark in there). He is very friendly and communicative, the only problem is: I can’t here what he is telling me because the music is so loud. So I end up with a t-shirt that turns out to be light green instead of grey. Umpf.
I know that I won’t be able to wear all these damned clothes because I can’t wear more than one jeans and one t-shirt at the same time (normally). I know that I will have to pay for overweight at the airport on my way to the next city I am going to spend some days at (and after that again and again and again …). I know that I will be about to freak out at Times Square trying to balance these shopping bags through crowds of people who couldn’t care less about me and my shopping overload.
I want to be freed from desire and to get rid of this infectious shopping greed. So my next book will be about the „happiness of living naked – how a life without clothes simplifies your existence and traces back your life to the real things”). Maybe it’s just this city that drives me crazy each time. I love it, I hate it and I know everything about it. And next time it’ll be just the same again.
]]>In his book „The world is flat” Thomas Friedman describes the changes and chances globalization and technology bring to all of us. I have thought about this flatness again and again travelling these days. Maybe not accurately the way Friedman meant it.
It’s more like a metaphor for some other observation that repeatedly came to my mind: the visuals of globalization. I will try to specify what I mean:Looking at American towns, bigger cities as well as smaller villages, I am always thrown back to one single layer of perception. It’s like a binary existence: something is there or is not there, a restaurant, a gas station, a hotel. You look at the façade that represents a function (eating, getting gas, sleeping) and that’s it. No context, no aesthetics, no embedding in a social texture around it. It’s just there.
If you want to grab a coffee you drive to a Starbucks, a building on a square right next to the interstate. There is no ‘attitude of coffee life” around it, no aesthetic of drinking coffee in a surrounding that’s made for that and no social pattern of people dropping by from school or on their way from the supermarket to meet others. It’s having a coffee or not having it, that’s what it’s all about. And that is what I mean by the single layer of perception which sometimes deranges me. In Europe this sort of binary existence can rarely be found (and in New York, Boston or San Francisco it’s different, too). It’s not one layer, it’s a bunch of complex and interwoven threats of social life that create and make up a place where one would have a coffee (why would I have one, whom will I meet there, do I like the place, why would I want to stay at this place … ?).
The one layer perception has even a meta interpretation. There is often only this one single layer because there is not more than one way of representation (I am simplifying a little, I know …). Starbucks is coffee, McDonalds is hamburgers, Kentucky Fried Chicken is chicken, Walmart is superstore, Taco Bell is Mexican food, CVS is pharmacy. The range of standardization and the reduction of brand variety in daily life are amazing, especially in rural and small town America (maybe indeed a reason for getting bitter …). That’s one result of the ongoing process of globalization. But: In the U.S. I sometimes ask myself whether it has ever been different.
It might be human to reduce the scale of choices one has to make every day. But I have to admit: I would rather do so because I am overwhelmed by the wide variety of opportunities to make a choice, not because there is pretty much none.
]]>If I had been asked to create a movie set on: How will it look like when a presidential candidate visits a university, this would have been the story line: Young people with parents or relatives, local politicians and some other representatives sitting in an auditorium in such a nice and tidy university campus.
Wake Forest is the Truman Show for students and presidential candidates: You might loose track of whether this is real or you are unwillingly part of a big brother show on campus.
John McCain speaks about “Judical Philosophy”. In fact he talks about the constitutional restraints on power which is a hot topic after eight years of a Bush administration violating laws and the constitution to whatever extend was needed right away. He is talking about checks and balances and how the boundaries are blurring these times with federal judges ruling on policy issues they are not supposed to decide upon. A president has to take care of the constitutional restraints. He wants to take care of them again he apparently wants to deliver to the audience. A convincing topic, not convincingly packaged.
Mc Cain is reading out a prepared and printed speech. He uses the teleprompter which makes him look like watching a tennis game always turning his head between the one on the left and the one on the right hand side. A journalist sitting at a desk in front of me surfs the web for the newest and most fancy fashion collections. Mc Cain is not fascinating, he lacks charisma. He seems to be a nice guy. I would probably let him spend an afternoon with my children at the zoo, but I wouldn’t vote for him.
Even worse is how he is acknowledged by some of his endorsers on stage. The former solicitor Ted Olson, says: “I can introduce you to a real American hero. A man of character, unshakeable integrity and conservatism.” These might be valuable characteristics of a person and a politician. But is this sort of heroism what the American people wish for their future and that of their country? It is old school politics McCain and his entourage represent.
Before the candidate enters the stage they play cover versions of “Nothing compares to you” (Sinead O’Connor) and “Take a chance on me” (Abba) – these horrible crazy keyboard driven degenerating pieces of originally good music that drive you nuts. Something fresh and authentic is needed here – maybe not just in terms of music.
]]>It’s a very exciting endgame (reminding indeed of the Beckett piece in various ways). So my co-fellow and friend Chak Hee from Korea and I have followed the different campaigns for several days.
Yesterday we first went to a McCain event in North Carolina in the early morning (more on that later) to move on after that to Raleigh-Durham, NC, where Obama was supposed to announce victory in the evening. My goodness, we did a lot of driving these days. Luckily we had the GPS supporting us and helping us to keep track of all the different venues, events and speeches, we experienced during the days.
On our tour to Raleigh the GPS got confused as well. We were going on a freeway, the road sign pointing us to Raleigh. But the device had apparently never heard of this freeway. So we watched the little pink car on the screen, representing our real vehicle, weirdly moving off-highway. It just wasn’t able to catch up (probably due to some old software). So we decided to ignore it and went on.
The GPS turned out to be pretty obstinate and got angry at us. Over and over it told us to move somewhere else than we were supposed to go according to the street signs. I have never heard such an annoyed and abusive voice: “RECALCULATING” the woman’s voice said repeatedly, sounding like: ‚You two little idiots are really going on my nervs! How often do I have to tell you that you are going the wrong direction, you imbeciles?’ We nevertheless managed to arrive at the hotel.
Later that evening we wanted to join the Obama election party. We took the car to go there and entered the address into the GPS. It was dark, we didn’t have a map. And we had no idea where we were going. So we had to rely on technology (bad feeling anyhow). After I while I thought, well, that’s a pretty strange area to have a voters party. „Obama is having a party in the middle of nowhere”, I joked and we were laughing.
Some minutes later we got stuck in a dead end street, in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, everything dark, nobody on the streets and a forest in front of us. „Arriving at final adress”, the GPS said and went off. “I think it is getting back at us”, Chak Hee said. “It’s taking revenge because we ignored it the whole day.” So we sat in the darkness both eagerly working on our PDA to access the internet and check the address. First finding: It was apparently wrong. Second finding: This wrong address was on Wikipedia. One more example you always have to double check everything that’s on there. Third finding: The same wrong address was on the website of the University we were supposed to go to. Hmh … Somebody should talk to the guy in charge for that.
Finally, we found the right address and had to go back about twelve miles. It turned out that the venue we wanted to go to was right next to our hotel. Well done … When we arrived at the University Coliseum we could watch some policemen surveilling the deconstruction of the barriers. Apparently the party was over. I drove up to a group of handsome young blacks, stopping right beside them. “HELLO”, I called trough my open side window, “we are late!”. They all burst out in laughter. “Yes, you are”, one of them said. “It was over about an hour ago.”
When I was lying in my bed later on (after I had after all squeezed a glass of wine out of the waiter though the hotel bar was also closed when we arrived there) I watched the commentators only talking about one question: When and how will Hillary withdraw after these results? Trying to fall asleep this GPS came to my mind again and again. I was lost in reverie imagining it talking to Hillary. “RECALCULATING”, it said. “Turn right and stay on route back home”.
]]>Obama is a handsome guy, in good shape, moving with a feeling for his body on stage, the sleeves of his white shirt without a tie rolled up. He moves as if floating some inches above the panels of the construction that puts him above the heads of the most people so that everybody can see him.
He has to fight harder since his statement about small town America getting bitter and clinging to guns or religion and even more since his former pastor Jeremiah Wright attested to all his former remarks on race and politics in the U.S.. That proofed once more that you don’t need an enemy if you really have a good friend. And Hillary proofs again and again that you do not need a Republican if you have a Democratic opponent.
Obama is in troubled waters. But it seems that he can walk these waters and still perform well. His moves are controlled but smooth. He doesn’t fire the claims of his campaign at his audience. His words pour constantly out of his mouth, among them some little slips of the tongue, as if he would try to carefully embed the people in the park into his political program. This man is charismatic. He is convincing. And he seems authentic. A characteristic rarely found among politicians.
That also might be one of his handicaps in this campaign. He believes that U.S. politics have to change and argues in favour of a different political culture: “We have run a positive campaign!” he asserts several times in his speech (that is the only remark obviously pointed at Hillary Clinton). He wants it to come true that you can tell the truth and become president without muckraking. It might be that he will fall victim to his own wishes and assumptions. But listening to him and watching him speak I think: it’s worth trying it.
His campaign could nevertheless care more about details. Standing on the stage for the TV cameras I can observe that they will rarely be able to shot Obama in a frontal perspective. He is talking to his audience and either nobody told him that he occasionally should turn to the media or he has just forgotten about it. The voters might be the ones that count for this Tuesday. But in a media driven society you always have to take into account that a bigger part of them won’t be in the park but in front of the TV set at home.
At the rally for Hillary in Indianapolis I carefully scanned the audience and spotted ONE black woman (there were no black people at all at the Clinton event in Angola). At Obamas park picnic almost three quarters of the people attending are black. America is an integrated country? No, it still isn’t. And becoming aware of this while listening to Obama, a person always addressed in the media as a black man with a white mother, never the other way round, I feel doubts. As a matter of fact America is ready for this kind of person as president: with a multinational, multicultural background, having lived trough the experiences of diversity in his own life. That’s what the USA should be ready for because they need it desperately. Whether they are ready for a black president? I still can’t tell.
]]>Another 20 minutes pass, it has become dark now and I can’t feel my fingers anymore not to speak of opening a pocket or using a camera without shivering so strongly that the picture looks like taken during an earth quake. I get a bit worried that she might loose Indiana just because most of her most loyal voters will be down with influenza and stay in bed coming Tuesday. Somebody on stage is telling us that America is in crisis. I’m in crisis, too. Hillary wants to fight global warming. I am in favour of global warming from this moment on. I terribly need global warming right away.
Then she appears. 90 minutes after the party started. We are the happier to see her now that she has come. I have really wondered that all these people in the audience have not been getting annoyed. Maybe it’s because they are used to it. Maybe because it’s worth it listening to Hillary. Though she is ill and can hardly speak she gives a wide ranged impression of her political knowledge and experience. She makes some very precise points about the gas prices and the role of the oil industry. She explains why she wants to go in a confrontation with China about trade and copyright law. And she argues reasonably against the ‘no child is left behind’ program as a bureaucratic and ineffective monster. That is appealing. That is clear. That shows that she is bright and ready to hit the ground on day one after the presidential elections. And these are supposed to be a various proofs for one of the campaign claims that Hillary is the one “to close the deal”.
For me there is one doubt left. When the party goes on they play the song “Yes, she can change the world.” After having listened to her one is inclined to believe it. BUT: If it takes her one and a half hours to get on stage, how long will it take her to change the world?
]]>Early in the morning Bill Clinton must have started his travel to Angola. No, not the one in Africa, a little town right at the boarder of Indiana and Michigan.
The people of the state below this border are supposed to decide on Tuesday, 6th of May, who is going to be the Democrats candidate for the presidential election. Indiana will make a difference. Therefore it needs Bill to reveal, why Hillary has to be the one.People line up outside of the Angola Middleschool in East Maumee Street. When they finally have entered the sports hall, a room with occupancy of 1.000 people, it’s full but not crowded. “If you look around there are empty seats all over the place”, a man standing next to me tells a virtual listener. “I thought they would be turning people away.” Apparently he anticipated more Bill-Fans.
When the Ex-President formerly also known as a candidate, appears on stage I have to admit: The people present manage to impose the impression that about 3.000 fans are in this coliseum, screaming and shouting.
Bill Clinton is fascinating. He is charming. He looks even better than when he was President. He is a real talent as a speaker. He has charisma. And apart from all the stories everybody has heard and read all over again – he just appears convincing and trustworthy. You want to believe that he knows what he is talking about. And in the first place: You want to listen to him.
And he knows how to address audiences in the right way. Of course, parts of his talks are stump speech, but he impressively adapts them to this middle age, slightly conservative, all white audience – political fine-tuning. “The middle class is under assault” is one of his first statements. Which says: ‘YOU are under assault’ – ‘and Hillary is the saviour of the dishonoured on her way to rescue you and this god blessed town of Angola. He carefully and extensively addresses every issue that is of specific importance on the political agenda of these people. The Iraq war and the military (“I know that Indiana has more people in the National Guard than any other state!”), the economy and the job drain as a result of globalization (“She will bring manufacturing jobs back to America!”) and the mortgage crises (“This is a crazy system and you are paying for it!”).
“She proposes” is the most frequently heard beginning of a statement in his speech. And then he explains what Hillary proposes in terms of economy, military, war, jobs, trade, gas prices, health care, education and the financial markets. An impressive political agenda presented as a narration of the reawakening of America.
In the evening of the same day I hear Hillary talk in Indianapolis about the same topics. She is even more convincing in terms of facts and argumentation lines. But Bill will still be the one the people love more. Why? Because he is a performer on every stage of political and daily life. He is an excellent teacher in a course for “supportive spouses”, be it in an election campaign, a business education seminar or even a slumber party.
In her own speech that evening Hillary asks the people of Indiana to look at this Primary as a hiring. “Who would you hire to change the economy, to provide health care for everybody, to bring back our troops in 60 days?” Of course, she hopes that they will hire her. The only question left is: Is this the matter? Or do the American people rather ask: “Whom do I want to invite to my barbecue party?” If this was true Bill would better do it again.
]]>After waking up early in the morning the sunlight pouring into my room through I take a glance trough the thin panes of the windows at this little town.
There is nobody on the streets and I can’t even see a car. The one and only crossing with a traffic light is empty. And the city hall looks like taken from a movie scenery. I feel like visiting the fifties. That was exactly the time when James Dean shot the film “Giants” in this little town, Marfa, in Southwest Texas. Since then things will surely have changed. It’s just that the observer won’t recognize.
There is not much to do in Marfa except of visiting the great exhibitions of Donald Judd and other artists or exploring a vast landscape that takes the time traveller to the Mexican border and the Rio Grande and other little towns as remote and frozen in time like Marfa.
So I spend hours at the Patio of the Paisano Hotel, listening to the sound of the fountain and allowing my thoughts to roam by spontaneous inspiration and association. This place is quiet, hot and extraordinary. It throws oneself back to the roots of happiness and sadness. But even the latter is still enjoyable. In the patio of the Paisano even the very bad coffee that went through a solitary existence of at least one full day in the large coffeepot next to the reception in the hall of makes me feel good. Marfa has a kind of magic nobody can explain. But it forces people to come and visit.
As a matter of fact and emotion I could have stayed for weeks just enjoying this spot and writing my new book. This weird remote place imposes strange thoughts and strange behaviour on me and makes me very, very happy.
]]>We are entering surveillance society. Just take a taxi from the San Francisco Airport and you will discover a little camera in the front of the car that films you all the way downtown to your hotel.
On the side window a warning sign says: “You are on camera” and the system is ironically called “silent witness”.It might be silent but it is real. The pictures taken in the cab are directly processed to the San Francisco Police Department. Whenever the folks down there want to watch you riding in the cab they can do so. I am not behaving badly in a taxi but do I want to be on camera every second of my ride? Do I want them to watch me making a phone call and hear what I’m saying? Do I want them to know where I got on the taxi and where it will drop me off? No, certainly not!
This system is mandatory for every taxi by San Francisco City Law for the sake of the drivers’ security. That’s an important aspect as well as my privacy. I am pretty sure this will be become one of the bigger issues of the next decade. Security versus privacy. While riding that taxi I guess: it already is.
]]>I am familiar with quite a variety of arguments the newspaper business imposes on itself to commit suicide fearing dead. Decline of circulation, decline of market shares, the movement of advertising revenues from print to online, the fading of a whole industry.
These dark visions are discussed all over the world. But the most depressive part of the discussion seems to be eminent in the U.S. Talking to a former editor of one of the bigger East Coast newspapers, she tells me: “I don’t believe that newspapers will survive in the U.S. The Internet will take their place, not least because the quality of the papers is so poor.”
You have a point there. My favourite definition of quality time is to sit in a café in the morning with a café latte and a newspaper. If this is supposed to work I need more than the caffeine infusion, there has to be an intellectual infusion as well, providing me with facts, provoking thoughts and argumentation lines I can digest over the day. In a lot of smaller cities in the U.S. this is hard to find. Not only because the papers are really poor, you simply can’t even buy the alternatives. Try to find the “New Yorker”, “Harpers Magazine”, “The Atlantic” or even „The New York Times” in Southern U.S. You have to go to the airport, there you might be lucky sometimes.
Will newspaper lovers have to face harder times? It might be true for the U.S. The exciting and inspiring version of journalism can be found in the magazines as well as in some editions of the NYT. Not in the daily papers. But that’s not the fault of the internet, that’s due to economic pressures, greedy investors and a lack of carefulness in keeping up the profession of journalism under changing conditions (though the U.S. have some of the best university journalism schools available).
It’s not all the internet’s fault! A good paper like the NYT proofs each and every day that the print edition and the web presence can coincide fruitfully. So maybe it is time to double check why the print business adds quite a portion of defeatism to its own future fate. At the Milken Institute’s Global Conference there was – of course – a panel discussing the future of print media in the digital age. Brian Tierney, CEO of the Philadelphia Media Holding, pointed at something very true: “The problems of this industry are so overstated because journalists talk about these problems all of the time.” Right he is. Journalism is a self-centered business. But way too many of its representatives act as messengers of doom. Embracing the opportunities of the Internet will be much more helpful than painting the picture of a disappearing industry.
One argument might be the crucial one in this debate: Have you figured out what would happen to the Internet if there were no newspapers anymore, no editorial staffs providing lots of content every day, no investigative journalists spending a lot of time and effort to discover the malfunctions in politics, business and society? The Internet would become a boring place of recycled information. “Google would go out of business if newspapers were not longer around”, said Brian Greenspun, the president and editor of the Las Vegas Sun on that above mentioned panel. I know he is right. It’s very often an idea derived from my morning newspaper reading that rumbles in my brain and is turned into a blog posting later on.
I love good journalism and the social network society of the internet age needs it like every other society before. “Of course as long as man lives someone will have to fill the herald’s place. Someone will have to do the bellringer’s work. Someone will have to tell the story of the day’s news and the year’s happenings.” This is not a quote from a blog, it’s from a personal letter William Allen White wrote to Lyman Kellogg in 1931. Sometimes old letters can tell the truth about the young internet age.
See also, what Benedikt tells us.
]]>To get involved into small talk rounds at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference during lunch or a reception there is one very popular question that immediately triggers conversation: “Have you had your personal genetic code analyzed yet?”
The personal genome is one of the most requested and discussed piece of information these days. Firms like „23 and me” or „Navigenics” offer the service of analyzing it for about 2.500 US$ (the yearly update adds up to an extra 250 $ a year). They provide a little box you have to mail back to deliver a sample of your salvia or spittle. On this basis your personal genetic code is checked and the results for a range of known diseases will tell you your risk scores and if these risks are lower or higher compared to the population’s average.
That sounds easy and helpful. So we are on the verge of googling our genomeand shouldn’t “mind to get personal” in terms of our genome as the title of one interesting panel at the conference suggests. But the consideration might be a bit more disparate. Sitting next to a funds manager of one of the popular U.S. universities we immediately get into a discussion about it. He and his wife had their genomes analysed some months ago. “I was really curious about it and thought it might be really helpful”, he said. “But when we had delivered our samples I suddenly started to think ‘Do I really want to know’?” He exactly got to the point: Do we want to know? Or might not knowing that I have like a 40 percent risk of getting Alzheimer (a disease without any chance of medical healing up to now) be a blessing for the time being?
And: Who should know? „23 and me” opens up an individual account with the results of the genome analysis on a secure database. That’s what they promise … Can I be sure that this is reliable? Or might other people be able to access my genetic database trying to find out about my health risks before hiring me („She has a 35 percent risk of heart attack, the other guy only 11 percent, let’s take advantage of that, he will probably be the longer term investment …”).
Craig Venter, one of the big names in the business of genetics and speaker on the panel, got the fact of the matter: We will have to learn what to do with these data, how to use them and how to protect them.
So do I mind getting personal? In many respects not at all. We are on our way into the open access knowledge society anyhow. But in this case it’s different. I would like to take my time to figure out what I want to know. And even more do I need to figure out who else should know. In any case I still prefer not to be approached as a bunch of health risk statistics – not in business and not in private life.
See also here: Science on DLD, Meine Gene kriegt Ihr nicht, Genethisch vertretbar
]]>Developing a developed country
As we have almost reached the top of the hill plateau north of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a water truck passes spraying water on the road to keep the dust down.
A few minutes later we can overlook the Pajarito Mesa, a settlement of 1.400 people, most of them Mexicans, who live here without any of the blessings a life in a developed country normally provides.
450 families live on this devastated piece of land in mobile homes or trailers – some of them have been on the Mesa for more that twenty years and in third generation. Sandra is the community speaker and shows us around. There is no electricity, no water supply, no medical care, no public service of any kind. At least the community has managed – after years of struggling – that the school bus regularly picks up their children at the entrance of the Mesa each morning and brings them back in the afternoon. Some of the kids have to walk about three miles till they approach their homes each day in the morning and in the afternoon, because the Mesa is a vast community. On their way they have to fear encounters with rattle snakes and coyotes. But the bus stops right at the end of the public road as if it wouldn’t dare to move on. It’s exactly the spot where the concrete road turns into a dirt road the community built on their own initiative.
Even the police seem to avoid the Mesa Pajarito. So there is no security and a lot of vandalism is giving the inhabitants a hard time. A woman about 60 years old gets off her car to say hello to us. She is simply happy that someone is visiting the Mesa. She lost her home twice because of strangers dropping by destroying every part of her house and taking away the few things the family with a disabled father and five children possessed.
Most of the adults at the Mesa go to work every day. They have to drive to Albuquerque so a car is crucial to sustain daily life for a variety of reasons. On each trip they visit the local gas stations, shops or restaurants to beg for water. And if not too many Mesa neighbours have exhausted the patience of the donors there might be a chance to bring back some gallons of water that keep up the family life for another day or two.
It was a community initiative that turned a page: When New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson declared that he would be running for presidency Sandra organized a joined agitation. “How will you be representing the people of New Mexico if you can’t even supply our small community with running water?” she asked the Governor. That finally helped. They will start to build a well soon right next to the entrance of the Mesa.
Only a few yards from that spot your view can follow a major power line going down to Texas. There is enough electricity but the people of the community don’t have access to the grid. The problem of electricity will stay unsolved meanwhile.
What we experience and observe at this spot in New Mexico is really thought-provoking. The living conditions, the shortages of supply for basic daily needs, the way of constipating legal immigrants at some benighted place – that all reminds of a developing country. It’s so called ‘third world’ alike. Remember: We are in the U.S. in the year 2008. It takes time and effort to merge observations and knowledge.
As we leave the mesa going back to Albuquerque we pass the water truck again. It atomized the water desperately needed in the community so that it binds the dust on the street. At second glance that almost seems like a cynical citation of what we have just experienced.
]]>Well, I don’t want to discuss this sort of “communication theory”. What struck me were the consequences he delivered to the audience. Only those people acting in accordance to their declarations and feelings are able to honor the lord appropriately. And only those will receive the “full reward”.
“Full reward”? Actually, that term I have come across several times during my travels. For example in all these international business hotel chains where you can apply for membership and collect points for every night you stay. And I could also read it on the big road billboards along the interstate advertising the local casinos. I was always promised “full reward”.
In that church I had learned that honor and full reward apparently also seem to form sort of a business relation. Taking a look at the little envelope for donations on my seat I was immediately confirmed: “Financial miracle you are believing for” was printed on it. Even a miracle is the result of a business relation. “Give and it shall be given unto you”, says Luke 6,38. Did he really mean it that way?
]]> Quality for less
I have travelled throughout parts of the USA these weeks. I have travelled along the formation of a leading country in our world. And I have hit the road of globalization with all its disparities.
This is exactly the accurate metaphor because roads are so important in the U.S. Originating from a European country I have always focused on the places people live in which are conjunct by roads and freeways. In the U.S. it seems to be the other way round. Life is where the freeway is. And the places to go are intersections of the much more important ties between them.
I have travelled a lot of spots in Southern and Western U.S. where life is nowhere but alongside the intestate. That is presumably due to the distances people have to overcome in this country. And it might also result from a concept of life that is based on cars. That’s why – as to the wealthier people – Americans prefer to adopt a Highway rather than anything else. On the other hand the amount of people living in mobile homes or trailers makes me assume that the car might even be more valuable than a home and that mobility is a concept of staying in transit and not to arrive at a certain place. And finally this might also be due to the fact that a lot of people can’t allow themselves one important part of the triple bottom line of the American dream: a house, a car, a family (I’m not quite sure about the order of priorities).
So it was just the right decision to travel by car and to hit the road of globalization. What this process means to a whole country and the parts of it can be observed quite impressively travelling through the Southwest of the USA, a different country in many ways. One day I stopped at a billboard saying: „Quality for less.” This roadside billboard must have been out there for quite a while. But it still could be the claim representing globalization nowadays. Everybody can have access to everything at a much lower price compared to former times – that is one of the crucial promises of globalization. Everybody? Everything?
There are preconditions for an individual to be able to participate in the process of globalization and to enjoy its benefits: education, wealth – a membership card for the white middle class or an exceeding club is very helpful. Without it one has to struggle, often lifelong. There is better quality for a limited group of people. And this quality costs less for them. But for quite a big number of citizens – even in developed countries like the U.S. – the less educated, the non-whites, the non-Christians, often happen to pay the price of globalization. You can read that in a bunch of books on globalization. It’s different to recognize the people between the pages of these books.
]]>Southeast of Marfa towards the border of Mexico there is a little ghost town called Shafter. If you leave the highway and follow a dirt road to a tiny plateau you will find an old Mexican cemetery full of ‚wolf graves’. They are very shallow because the ground is so rocky that people can’t dig deep.
So they had to pile up stones to cover the bodies of the dead. Most of the graves have a white cross on top without a name on it. They are quite old and have been partly destroyed by the wind and by the ravages of time.
Right next to this cemetery there is another one. Nicely apportioned in quarters with a fence around it so that nobody can step on the graves. A rock plate tells me who has been buried here. There are flowers on the graves, names, sometimes even pictures. This is the cemetery of the Angloamericans. Even death does not overcome difference.
When things are not given a name they won’t come into existence because they will not become part of our language and communication. When humans are not given a name they won’t stay in existence because they will not remain part of our memories and communication.
]]>Driving in the U.S. is a pleasure. There is nothing more comfortable in this country than cars and roads. And there is nothing people do care more about. Driving from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Marfa, Texas, I detected the cruise function in my rental car.
That is awesome! You pull a little switch and the car glides down the freeway with nothing but a tender move of my right hand to keep track. I didn’t even have to worry about the directions because a tiny black box, known as GPS, guided me to the right path. That device is called “Hertz Never Lost”.
Well, even a machine can’t always keep its promises. In the heat of the Southwest Texas desert the GPS started to faint. I kept on cruising – listening to the new Morcheeba CD and having been shifted into a superordinate mental zone where one couldn’t care less about routes. After a while it said: „When possible make a legal u-turn”, then constantly repeating itself. Interestingly enough I have a weakness for illegal u-turns not only when it comes to traffic. This time it was a bit more difficult. On an interstate through the desert with sandheaps between the tracks and trucks all over the place it would have been a bad idea to try one – legal or illegal. So I kept on cruising thinking there was plenty of time to arrive in Marfa.
What retracted me from my meditation ride was a police car behind me making an unpleasant noise and turning up the headlights in short intervals. It took me a while but then I realized that I would better have stopped immediately. So I did. The policeman approached my window and asked for the drivers licence. Everything was okay – my licence, the rental car contract, even me I think – but not my speed. “You were checked at a speed of 99 miles” said the officer, “while 60 miles are allowed.” I stared at him slowly realizing that this would become one of the more expensive lessons in meditation. He stared back. I tried to concentrate. Then I chose to perform the silly one. I explained to him that I could’t believe what he was telling me because I was always strictly obedient to speed limits. And then I started to blame the cruise function (which was really unfair because I had had so much fun before). I told him there was much too much technology in these modern cars and that one couldn’t concentrate on the driving anymore not to speak of speed limits because the car permanently demanded communication processes between its electronics and the driver.
“I’ll be right back” said the officer and I lost any hope to get away with this. Then he came back: “It’s a warning. But be sure now to watch your speed.” I happily took the ticket I would not have to pay for and by chance saw his watch. It was an hour later than I thought. I had just forgotten about the time difference between New Mexico and Texas. My meeting in Marfa was overdue and I had just saved a lot of money. So I went on (rediscovering slowness) and had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in a patio bar in Marfa. What a wonderful cruise day forever lost!
]]>The town took the name of the popular radio show “Truth or Consequences” in 1950 after the presenter, Ralph Edwards, had announced that he would broadcast his show from the city that was willing to name itself after his show. So “Hot Springs” was renamed as “Truth or Consequences” – according to this silly game that quite simply provides the players with some formal frame to do silly things. I remember having played the game over and over again when I was a very early teenager. It was just an excuse for the first kiss and touch – and therefore it was very useful and very exciting.
It’s not that exciting to take a walk in Truth or Consequences today. The little town is apparently no tourist or nightlife hot spot. So it happens to me that while walking from the hotel to a near restaurant people gather behind the blinds to take a closer look at that foreign woman passing on still somewhat stiff legs (the Canyon hike is yet very present in the memory of my muscles). In the restaurant am repeatedly approached by a guy who wants me to share a bottle of red wine with him while constantly calling me “Karen”. And I am not even told the specials of the day because the waitress is overwhelmed by the fact that a guest can happen to be just by herself in a restaurant because she wants to EAT.
The truth is: that’s what I did. And I slept ten hours in a wonderful bed. And the consequences were delightful: The six hours trip today was just a walk in the park.
]]>
And there are some places where even this is more difficult than one could expect, at the airport of Phoenix, Arizona, for example. Still some hotels offer a very unique experience.
When I finally managed to arrive at the hotel after having called them three times to find the way to this cut off neighbourhood it was after ten pm. Leaving the car I first see a young Asian woman in a long glittery white dress running out of the hotel and screaming. She is obviously not part of a greeting committee for new guests but escaping a too pleasant or too unpleasant party at the hotel. After having entered the hall I see what happens: it is the night of a prom – these strange high school parties where girls are taken to by boys they hope to get to know better during that night and vice versa. There are crowds of young men and women in the hall, dressed like a group of flamingos (the women) and penguins (the men). And there is screaming and shouting and hysterical laughing all over the place. I have to escape to my room immediately.
That room offers further surprises: Standing in the clearly arranged bathroom I see a sign right next to the shower that says “shower” pointing to the left. Oh man, there it is! I would have never found it without this helpful sign. So I step in and try to calm down with hot water pouring over my skin.
When I want to go to bed I find a little present on the sheets. A small bag with some anti wrinkle cream (thank you for having known in advance) and a small bag with earplugs. The inscription on the bag says: “Crown Plaza – a place to meet”. I dim the light and start thinking about that. A place to meet with ear plugs? Why is that? Am I supposed to meet people and use the ear plugs not to hear what they are saying to me? Are the other people supposed to use them so that they won’t be bothered by my yackety-yak? Or do I get something wrong?
After a while I fall asleep just to wake up again a bit later. I listen to a loud and interesting conversation in the room next door between a guy and a girl trying to pave their way into some collective moves on a bed that as far as I can make out by listening to the sounds trough the wall behind my head is always moving in the wrong direction.
I got it! I am the one to use the earplugs because other people use this place for some practice in a very specific sort of “meeting”. Thank you for this foresighted implicit advice and have a good night.
]]>
This hike provided some spectacular views of the landscape, various instants of contemplation and one most lucky moment after having returned – I made it!
When I reached the trail head after ten hours of hiking I saw a big warning sign: „DO NOT attempt to hike from the canyon rim to the river and back in one day. Each year hikers suffer serious illness or death from exhaustion.”
Well then, reading that sign on my way down could have been a somewhat discouraging experience. But this was “hiking day”, not “reading day”. Today I would have given a fortune for a new pair of legs. And I made the funniest moves getting out of the car walking like a duck on stilts. But these views are worth all of it. Exhaust yourself and you will free your mind and even might be able to have a great experience.
]]>It is true that trees can tell stories about growth and the change of seasons, that mountains tell the story of the earth and evolution as well as very individual stories about human challenges and failures, that the sun every day tells the story of an beginning and an end.
Landscapes also tell stories and some even tell very personal ones that do not emerge elsewhere but in the mind of the individual watching and thinking about what they see.
Staying at the Grand Canyon for this weekend and watching the sunrise and sunset I have to admit that this landscape tells a very personal story. It’s a natural story about life as an aggregation of contrast. It needs darkness to discover the light. It need scantiness to discover the richness, it needs solitude to discover companionship. It’s only these antagonisms that make life a living experience. One depends on the other and every one of us depends on both parts for an individual living experience.
The Grand Canyon is one of the most incredible places to get exposed to the narrative of a landscape. It might even be a very special place for people who somehow have lost track of themselves being a reflection of a scheduled and packed trip along the busy roads of politics, business and media.
What does this landscape tell me? It narrates a story of beginning and ending, about things in life I can’t figure out, explain or even slightly understand. It tells the story of recognition and respect and the one about a step to far that takes you down. It also tells the story about being by oneself as an existential precondition of self reflection and awareness. It exposes me to the undeniable awareness that we sometimes chose a dead end street at an important crossing in life and to the feeling of weakness and sadness confronting difficult decisions in life that are crucial and sometimes final. But then finally it tells the story about the sound of silence.
‚When the calls and conversations, accidents and accusations, messages and misperceptions paralyze my mind. I find a refuge in the easy silence that it makes for me. It’ s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me. And the peaceful quiet it creates for me keeps the world for a while at bay for me.’
]]>Which road are the Democrats going to take? After the debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama yesterday evening, six days ahead of the Pennsylvania Primaries, nothing has become less unclear than is has been for the last weeks.
Hillary Clinton is expected to win the Pennsylvania Primaries but not to an extent that might turn a page in the Democrats candidates race. She would need a high double digit win to prove possible what became impossible in terms of mathematics some time ago. Even if she wins by ten percent it’ll be still not be enough. Obama leads by 1644 delegates, Clinton has 1498. So she is trying hard to ensure that it will be the Superdelegates who will finally decide the issue. That might be true, but it might also be piping in the dark.
The most important question is: How long is this still supposed to go on? How long will two candidates of the same party fight each other in a way we usually know from rivals of different parties? Talking to o lot of experts and researchers at Berkley and Stanford it seems that there is only one way for Hillary Clinton: the way out. The Pennsylvania Primaries could be her first exit. If the won’t have to take that one she will probably just take a detour on her way out of the race. The next exit will surely be hers.
Nevertheless that might already be too late. Then the Democrats will have to face the ridiculous situation that 80 percent of the American people are unsatisfied with what’s going on in their country and how the Bush administration has handled that for the last years. They are willing to vote for change but the Democratic Party is not being able to take this unique chance. United they should stand, divided they will fall.
]]>Commentators related to Karl Marx and his famous quote of “religion as opium for the people” and found it inacceptable for a presidential candidate to argue in such a way. Others said that Obama dances around the truth. Their argument: He should have answered this question in the only possible clear and true way by referring to the racial issue: “A lot of folks are not with me because I am black, but I am trying to make my best of it”, would have been the right answer in the critic’s opinion.
The statement will probably hurt Obama in the Pennsylvania primaries. What I find striking about it is how big a public discussion can arise from some sentences. And what is even more incredible is how the two Democrat candidates intensify their struggle against each other. In a new ad that has just been released today Hillary Clinton tries to take advantage of this rhetorical mistake made by her rival.
It might be true that “bitter” is not the right word to describe how people feel who regard themselves as disadvantaged and neglected by the political leaders. It might also be true that this is one of the examples to show that Barack Obama can still improve his political sensitiveness and sensibility. But more than everything else it might be a bitter experience for the Democratic Party that the two candidates are fighting each other by means of negative campaigning that one could expect not to happen earlier than in the final phase of the election race between the candidate of the Democrats and the Republicans in autumn.
In the end “bitter” could just be the right word to describe what might be the feeling left for the Democratic Party after the elections in November.
]]>I wouldn’t believe it, but it was true. I was standing in front of a trash can at the airport with one handful of pennies, ready and willing to just throw them away. In the nick of time I realized what I was about to do and that this at least didn’t suit my serious education.
I have always learned that you can’t just carelessly throw away things other people might desperately need. So you can’t throw away money, the exchange value for almost everything people need in this world.
Why was I about to do that? Every time I open my purse to pay in a coffee shop or a store I have to grapple with all the small change. At first glimpse I see the colour of copper all over my purse. In this moment the first awkward feeling arises. I want to get rid of that change making my purse feel like a brick stone in my bag. Hence I try to pay the accurate amount on the check to at least dispose of some of the coins. That takes time, grabbing the pennies, counting them, meanwhile trying to hold together all my other stuff. After some trials the line behind me starts to rebel against me. They want to move on. In most of the cases that is the moment when I start to get hectic and abandon my plans. In the end there are not less but even more pennies in my purse.
Frankly speaking: this small money bothers me. And the more: It is almost worthless. What can you buy for a penny? No wonder that in almost every store and coffee shop you will find a cup or a basket the customers immediately throw their pennies in. This small money has no compassion for me as a customer. It just takes too much time and effort to pay with pennies today. So why should I feel compassion for these coins and not just toss them into the trash can? Possibly because we should have pity on the penny that was outrun by growth and inflation over the years. In a globalized economy running on big scale the penny is just too small to make a difference. But with the smaller ones we should always be compassionate.
]]>It’s not always easy to keep up these eating habits while travelling. Meanwhile I have learned that it is even kind of difficult in the agricultural or rural areas of the U.S. The main reason is that there is no local infrastructure, no grocery store, just the big malls along the Interstates. And the other reason is that there simply are different eating cultures. While it’s not a problem to find sushi bars, thai or veggi restaurants in the bigger cities of the East and West coast, it is hard to find those in the Southern part of the country. So in the meantime apples and these small salted pretzels have become my main course during my driving days accompanied by bottled water and this sort of coffee you can read a book through while drinking.
After several days I considered rethinking my nutrition strategy. It suddenly came to my mind that experiencing a country also means experiencing its food culture. So I looked up the best burger place on the internet and found it. In New Orleans at the Camellia Grill I had a fabulous hamburger with French fries. It might have been unhealthy to eat that but it was a double experience. First of all I really liked it (after all these pretzels). And second it was an opportunity for observation of U.S. history and societal change. There were men dressed in suits with necktie and women in dresses, both about 70 years old, sitting at the lunch counter. There were older and younger people, blacks and whites – and they all were enjoying themselves and the food. I felt like being part of a film location of the fifties. And the prices were alike.
Conclusion: Don’t be ideological about eating habits. You might miss even more than the perfect hamburger.
]]>A ceiling fresco does not need to be beautiful in any case, but it often tells the truth about the times in which it was painted and about the people inspecting it in their social context.
The above picture struck me in the “Gentlemen’s parlor” of a big Plantation house near New Orleans built in 1856. It shows the heads of two men left and right from the center of the ceiling’s ornament painting. “This tells us that men are in the center of the universe” the tour guide explains to the visitors group.
Nobody makes any comment. I wait for the female guide to deliver some additional ironic comment, but she unbelievably also doesn’t. Might it be true that there are still people in a modern Western country of the 21st century who carry on believing in that?
It might well be that the people in the 19th century were even more clever than we are today. Why did they paint that stuff on the ceiling in the men’s parlor? If it should have been a political exclamation they would better have it painted on the ceiling in the lady’s dressing room. She was the one that had to be constantly convinced of being some crap on the edge of universe.
I think it would probably have been for this reason: The women had the centric men painted on the ceilings of their own rooms knowing that they would stare up the whole day in conviction and satisfaction. Meanwhile the world outside of men’s parlors was changing without them taking notice.
This is not an ornament, it’s an historic site.
]]>When I came to New Orleans I had no idea how Hurricane Katrina had really hit and destroyed the town. It was a journalist who provided insight, the Feature Editor of the local newspaper, the Times Picayune. The team did a great job covering the storm and its consequences and got two Pulitzer Prices for their reporting.
We did a “Katrina Tour”. That might sound irritating at first sight, almost similar to tours you can register for at Disneyland or to see the graves of the most important writers and musicians in some cities all over the world. It was different.
He took me to the diverse parts of the city of New Orleans and I saw what one can’t imagine without seeing. What devastation nature can cause for things and for people. I knew the statistics, I had read a lot about Katrina: 55 levee breaches and 250.000 houses flooded in New Orleans. An area seven times the size of Manhattan went under water, in most parts the water rose to 7,60 meters. About 1.800 people died because of the storm or its aftermath. A vague number. Nobody knows accurately. An elderly woman dying of heart stroke after having realized that her home and parts of her family were gone. Is she a Katrina victim? It’s not about numbers, it’s about the stories of people’s lives that are told by the debris that can still be examined in some parts of New Orleans.
People lost relatives, friends and neighbours, their homes, their furniture, just everything. A lot of people lost every family photograph. The water wiped out houses, leaving nothing behind but some stairs and parts of the screen door. Many people came back after the storm and found nothing else but the brick with their own street number on it. They took it as a life souvenir.
A vast insight that I got from seeing all that I hadn’t realized like this before: It was not the storm that did all that damage to New Orleans. It was the water. It wiped out parts of the city because of misconstructed levees. They should have protected the people and the houses. This catastrophe was man made in a variety of ways.
“It is not a natural disaster”, one of the colleagues at the Times Picayune told me, “it’s more like war.” The observer today has to admit: yes, it is.
]]>ScienceBlogs: Gewinnen wir eventuell tiefere Einblicke, wenn wir nun virtuell mit Ihnen reisen und Sie uns an Ihren persönlichen Eindrücken Anteil haben lassen?
Miriam Meckel: Na klar. Über etwas zu schreiben, heißt immer, sich selbst über die eigenen Wahrnehmungen klar zu werden, sich zu hinterfragen und zu vergewissern, was man eigentlich wie beobachtet. Deshalb schreibe ich gerne mein Blog über meine Eindrücke während meiner Reise durch die USA. Es wird sprachlich nicht perfekt sein und es ist ein subjektives Reisetagebuch. Aber es zeigt eine Art, wie man die USA erfahren kann. Meine Art in diesem Fall.
ScienceBlogs: Was steht auf Ihrem Reiseplan?
Miriam Meckel: Ich werde für meine Wissenschaftskontakte nach Boston (Harvard), San Francisco (Stanford) und Los Angeles (UCLA) reisen. Aber ich werde auch Regionen der USA durchreisen, die ich noch gar nicht kenne, um einen anderen Eindruck dieses riesigen Landes zu bekommen. In New Orleans will ich mich beispielsweise über die Kommunikationsprobleme in und nach einer Naturkatastrophe (Katrina) informieren. Und dann werde ich mit dem Auto durch Texas fahren, einfach drauflos. Das ist der Teil, auf den ich mich am Meisten freue.
It is hot and humid and I immediately associate “water” with this city. It’s the humidity in the air of about 98 percent. It’s my skin covered by sweat right after leaving the airport. And it’s what people have in mind when coming to New Orleans – the city that was disastrously flooded after Hurricane Katrina had hit the town with up to 250 kmh on 29th of August 2005.
Driving in a taxi from the airport to the city center one has to take a closer look to find marks Katrina left after the winds and the water had gone. The city looks “normal” at first glance, like other U.S. cities being approached via freeway. The following days I will have learned: life is not normal in New Orleans. And sometimes I am not quite sure it ever will be again.
Moving on I get a glimpse of the New Orleans Superdome, an unsightly building rising in front of the Skyline of the city. That place where 30.000 people had to await help and evacuation for five days, because Federal Government and local authorities couldn’t come to terms on how to react to the Katrina disaster. The roof of the Superdome has been fixed some time ago, a symbol of getting back to normal life?
The taxi waits at a red light and a homeless black man approaches us. He is moving ahead very slowly, trying to coordinate the moves of his legs and arms appropriately. And he is very thin, his belt holding his worn out jeans just around the small belly to at least keep it up. He is too slow, even for New Orleans where life seems to be much slower than in other big U.S. cities. The taxi moves on. The man is left behind.
That’s one of the stories that have to be told about New Orleans and that will be told to everybody who is interested in taking a closer look at the city beyond jazzbars, mardi gras and the touristy French Quarter. The story about people who have been left behind because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, because they lived in a poor neighbourhood (which often incidentally happens to be a black neighbourhood) or one which is not “high and dry”, the phrase that technically describes how people and their homes could have survived the flooding after Hurricane Katrina.
The city is struggling to find its way back to normal life. And a lot of people from everywhere in the USA try to help by volunteering and donating. It will never be “old normality” the people in the city will get back to. It’s a “new normality”, as the people in New Orleans put it, they all try to achieve. And there is a lack of normality even in basic necessaries like a home, a neighbourhood, a narration of one’s own life and family history that concerns mostly poor and black people though Katrina made no difference between race, class, wealth or education of her victims. And this lack of normality was there before the hurricane came. But after it was gone some things became worse.
Stuck in congestion I can read the New Orleans city claim on the trash cans: “New Orleans – tradition in progress.” That’s more than true. Going down the road to the Hotel the taxi has to slow down to walking speed trying to get over a big and deep road whole. That might also be a mark Katrina has left. After having spent several days in town I sometimes catch myself thinking why there hadn’t been such wholes all over the city to swallow all the water that poured into bigger parts of New Orleans after Katrina had hit and save the city from drowning. That would have been a miracle. One of those that never happen. Normality for New Orleans will be a miracle, too. Hopefully that will happen some day.
]]>1. Barack Obama can make a difference nobody of the other two candidates can. In an interesting article for „The Atlantic“, the conservative writer Andrew Sullivan points out that Obama could be the president reconciling the Americans with themselves. Though nobody can tell right now if he will be able to bridge the gap between the Vietnam War stamped generation of the Baby Boomers and the ones to come. But he could be the representative of the modern USA by his naturally tense, contradictory but nevertheless resilient identity as a son of a black father and a white mother, upgrown in a nonreligious home and though having become a member of a Christian church, having attended a Muslim school in Indonesia and a Christian church in Chicago. Barack Obama represents the multi-facetted identity of a lot of people in the U.S. in all its complexity by sense and sensibility.
2. He is the candidate most promising to awake the political system characterized like in many other long established democracies by a major crisis of political representation. By taking alternative routes in argumentation and representation he might turn his campaign efforts into a win – something Hillary Clinton has up to now failed to achieve at least in part. She is stuck in her political experiences mainly coined by her husband. She had suffered from that and that is what people can still observe. Hillary has a straightforward political program and a much better track record, but she is not authentic. Barack Obama at least seems to be. That also makes a difference in times when the years of the Bush administration have paralyzed the country and the political representatives in many ways.
3. There are a couple of reasons why one could dislike the idea of Barack Obama to come into office. One major reason is that he is a rhetoric talent but had failed to prove that there is enough substance in his political program: gorgeous talk, abstract message. This observation had to be revised on the 18th of March when he gave his speech on race in Philadelphia. It might well be that he was forced to do so because there were more and more attacks against him because of his close attachment to his former pastor Reverend Wright and his comments on the racial issue. In his speech Obama rejected Wright’s “profoundly distorted view of this country”, he also challenged the auditory to break the “racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years”. That is not just an explicit message it also could have been a politically dangerous one. No presidential candidate had ever addressed the racial issue as clear as Obama did in Philadelphia. He could have put bigger parts of the white electorate off. But this apparently hasn’t happened.
It’s the audacity of speaking out in an election campaign that makes this candidate appealing in many different ways. And it’s this appeal that makes him a topic of conversation everywhere and everytime.
I went to a Radio Shack store to buy a microphone for my digital camera. There was a very nice guy helping me and giving it a try. The first time I tried to record a little interview to prove the mike asking him who he’s gonna vote for he answered that he hadn’t made up his mind yet. Unfortunately there was nothing recorded. We needed a second try (this time turning the mike on before starting). And that’s what he answered. Change happens quickly sometimes – even in politics.
]]>Incredible it is how things change after a few days abroad. Having been away now for more than a week from office, daily working routines, a flood of emails, regularly looking after the dishwasher, trying to squeeze in laundry between two meetings uphill and downhill I feel my life has sweepingly changed. More though: I have changed as well.
This might sound like an excessive interpretation but it’s just true. I can well remember the year I spent in Taiwan when I was a student. At that time I became someone different in various respects. I started to look at things differently (as I do again now). I shaped as a person (as I hopefully will still be able to do). And I lived and let live.
The latest is the most difficult. When I lived in Taipei I was a student. I wasn’t bothered by all these things a professional business life implicates (I love my job, so this is not a complaint but a pure statement). Today I often have the dim feeling that my life is squeezed between appointments, deadlines and self-imposed constraints.
Walking by an arts and poster store in Philadelphia I found the perfect plate to describe what has changed in my perception. Have deadlines amused me up to now? No, they have tortured me every now and then (more often now than then). I presently realize and just feel there is none and that’s just a great experience. I have checked me up by example. The article I had to deliver last week I sent with four days of delay. And nothing happened.
I have decided now that I won’t care about deadlines for the time in the USA. They amuse me, yes, not insofar as I won’t respect other peoples’ needs and expectations regarding me and my work. They amuse me because of the impact they can have on me while I am not in the position to reflect their relevance.
]]>To be fair and taking into account that one can not be sure about the origin of and the motivation for the way politicians address the public factcheck.org does not call it lying but “misleading”. That’s a nice way to put it keeping in mind that the techniques of publicly telling something else but the truth become ever more sophisticated.
One example: In a TV ad produced by the Obama campaign from January 2008 about his health care plan it is said: “The Obama plan saves $2.500 for a typical family”. For this quote the Washington Post is referred to as source. Interestingly enough this actually happened: The Washington Post quoted the Obama campaign in an article and the Obama campaign quoted this quote again as one of the Washington Post. A perfect example of self-serving political communication.
]]>What a difference did Barack Obama make! He entered the studio by some elegant moves on the stairs as if he had ever done nothing else but dancing. It is just a pleasure watching him with a feeling for his body and the right moves to make. A colleague from Germany immediately fell in love with him after she had seen the video. And for Ellen it was apparently fun, too.
So there are different ways of making the right moves in journalism and politics and dancing might be one of them. In this case it is almost impossible to juxtapose the two. It would appear like a comparison of a bad workout and a piece of performing art.
]]>Before starting off to our individual travels throughout the USA we did some nice group exercises for preparation. One covered travel experiences and change by this given statement: “What I learn during my Fellowship travels can change the world.”
The task was to form in groups of five and ask as many questions as possible and write them down on an easel pad. Each group then has to define the three most important questions.
Lots of questions related to change, of course. Like: “What needs to change?” “Am I ready to change?” “How do we influence others to change?” “How do we measure the success of change?” “What is the focus of change?”
But there were other questions that are intensely related to big change and much more sophisticated: „Is God black?” “What comes after consumer society?” “Does a woman leader make a difference?”
The most philosophical question to the above-mentioned answer I really liked very much was: “Whose world?” That’s presumably just the point: What world do we individually live in? Do other people really want to live in that same world the way we do? Does it make sense to define this specific model of our individual world as applicable to all people all over the place? I think not. Our individual interpretation of our world is the precondition for our individual definition of change. We have to find why, what and how we want to change and if this is acceptable and desirable for others, too. Maybe we should at least ask before imposing our model of interpretation and the derived necessity of change on others?
Change is dialogue. It’s never equivalent to assigning one situation or process from one context to another. In one positive sense change is the synthesis of thesis and antithesis. And then it is not just change, it’s also innovation.
]]>I am starting off for maybe two of the most interesting months of my life. Travelling for eight weeks throughout the USA on the multinational program of Eisenhower Fellowships I have the chance to meet outstanding people, expand my network, get to know things I may have never heard of before.
Two months as Eisenhower fellow means also spending time with 23 other fellows from 23 nations all over the world with 23 personalities, 23 backgrounds and individual lives and 23 philosophies of how to live a good life. That is an incredible opportunity to broaden my mind. I will get a lot of inspiration from the other fellows and all the people I will be meeting along my trip. And by any chance I can give some inspiration and excitement back to them.
What will I do? I will try to follow an insight the British mathematician George Spencer Brown provided us with. He wrote about the “unmarked space” which allows us to differentiate between “operation” and “observation”. While observing I can’t be operating at the same time. Nevertheless it becomes difficult for the observer to observe that he or she is an observer. In the moment of observation I might forget my difference. But I know that it is there, that it matters and that I can learn from it. Or as the social scientist Gregory Bateson puts it in his definition of information as a “difference that makes a difference.”
These two months are about looking at different things and about looking at things differently. I will try to look into some windows of the skyscraper USA I had not known that it was worth taking a closer look at before. And some of the things I see I might like or dislike. In any case they will often surprise me. And they will leave a light on in my memory that there is something to remember because it makes a difference.
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