Lecture time

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be addressing the United States President and Congress later today.

A little background: The United States wants Germany and other NATO partners to make a bigger contribution to the war in Afghanistan and support tougher sanctions against Iran.

Germany, on the other hand, would like to see the United States make deeper cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, which some scientists say cause global warming.

Hmm, I wounder who’s going to get what first?

But first they’ll be a short commercial break: “She is expected to highlight the special postwar relationship between Germany and the United States and Washington’s role in helping bring down the Berlin Wall with its tough stance toward the Soviet Union.” Those were the days. When it came to taking tough stances, I mean.

Spidermenschen

More German name problems

As you probably know, unless your name is Jihad, you can easily get discriminated against here in Germany. Especially here in grade school, or so I just read.

Sorry, that was a bit misleading about Jihad. There actually are a few other names that are still okay here too. A study just indicated that if your name is Sophie or Alexander or Maximilian or Katharina, for instance, German grade school teachers will treat you with a whole lot more respect than if your name is Justin, Chantal, Jaquelin or Marvin.

Or as one German teacher summed it up, involuntarily, when asked about one particular name: “Kevin is not a name, it’s a diagnosis.”

Funny, those names don’t sound all that funny to me. They almost sound, well, like American names. Hey, wait a minute…

“Eine Studie zeigt, dass Grundschulpädagogen Vorurteile gegen bestimmte Vornamen hegen – und manche Kinder deswegen sogar als besonders verhaltensauffällig einstufen.”

Higher education

Or was it education for hire? That’s the good thing about this wonderful egalitarian German higher education system over here. Everything is so, well, egal (whatever). Studying doesn’t cost anything in Germany, you see, or next to nothing.

Except… When it comes to the ones how happen to be more egal/equal than you are. They are the folks who are in the position to pay Herr Dr. Professor (take you’re pick, he’s both) a little bakshish on the side for “supervising” their doctorates and thus guaranteeing academic success.

“They were told simply that paying the money would go a long way to ensuring their Ph.Ds were in the bag.”