Today being the 3 of December, I am sitting at my desk planning the day with one of the main tasks being what to eat for dinner.  I decided pea soup with "Bauchspeck" ( pork belly used in chunks not like American bacon.  The word bacon comes from old German "Bacho" meaning buttocks) to accompany this windy cool and overcast day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon 

I am currently working in Berlin, a city I am quite familiar with in a production of the NOVOFLOT OPER to premier on the 24th of September. We are still in this gloomy sort of weather pattern that has persisted since the beginning of August. It has been cold enough to freeze some of the tomatoes in my greenhouse which is saying something. At any rate some thoughts about working and traveling on the subway here. One sees many people riding bikes and it is prudent to know where the bike lanes on the sidewalks are as could be quite dangerous. I have barely missed being hit by a rider because I am not used to being in this city. The view is quite nice at times as many of the riders are slim young ladies determinedly riding to work. One view that is not so nice is the subway entrances often peopled with drunks, panhandlers, or groups of people of indeterminate origins congregating and blocking at times access causing some detouring to get down below to a waiting train. There is one gentleman at the station on Alexanderplatz lolling around with a beer bottle in hand the whole day and into the night acting as a kind of official greeter. I have yet to figure out his function but he seems to know quite a few of the other beery individuals and then there is the smokers getting their last kick in before descending into the denizens of the Ubahn deep leaving a blue wreath of fog to get through before finally reaching relative air security.

The weather in August has been rainy and quite cool unlike Russia and Pakistan. It is Sunday the 29th of August and the daytime temperature is currently at 54 degrees. I am wearing fall jackets and sweaters. The prognosis for Monday is a high to 50 degrees and I am looking at the temperatures in the 90's in New Jersey. This is not unusual in Germany particularly in the region of Northeastern Bavaria where I live and my first year in Hof was similar with cold rainy weather up until October. This has been a good year for certain fruits such as apples and plums. They have a small plum here known as Mirabellan which is primarily used in jams and jellies and is mostly yellow in color. I had my first taste of these preserves when I was working in Austria. The lady who rented rooms for singers at the time made jam from these from the orchard from her backyard. The house stands on a former farm in Gars am Kamp in the Kamp Valley of which its river of the same name (again Kamp) flows westward to the Danube River. I still have a few of her preserve jars in my cellar. I have 2 gardens with plum trees and have had good success with the fruit making jellies, a type of canned plums in syrup and even dried prunes made in the oven. The first year I made plum jelly, I had to give away jars as it was enough for at least three years supply.

I have a large field near one of my gardens where I take my dog for a walk. The farmer usually cuts a grass strip alongside the crops which is perfect for all sorts of dogs with a brook running in the middle into which my labrador loves to plunge. Afterwards back at home I have to hose her off which doesn't phase her in the least.

Over the fields with Meggy

Today was unusually mild for November and I went for a bout of training in Nentschau, Germany near where I live with my Labrador Retriever named Meggy. The name is probably originally Maggy but the German pronunciation of the english "AAH" is "EH" as they don´t hear the difference. I arrived at my trainer´s and as I forgot to set a date for training she gave me the leash and I went out for a walk with Meggy by myself. The dog is being trained professionally and I see Meggy on weekends when she can overnight. It is quite expensive but the results are a well behaved dog that can respond to commands and even quietly lay at my side during church services (Bless the Beasts and the Children comes to mind). Normally when I have a training session during the week, the trainer goes with me and we work various commands and activities with the dog. Today was different, as I said, and I took off with Meggy by my side over land trails along fields reaching the former border of West and East Germany. There is a sort of road which is grassy with cement blocks where the East German border guards patrolled with vehicles to keep the inhabitants from crossing over to the other side and in their minds keeping the West out. We then turned and headed West making a circle coming back to our starting point at the trainer´s home. I had to watch out that Meggy did not try to sample the sheep droppings left when a herd was visiting a week or so ago. Labradors eat everything and Meggy is no exception. She was more interested in the apples that had dropped off the trees, chewing them and ultimately swallowing them. I have the feeling that when I am working with her and that is what one does for the rest of a dog´s life as put to me by my trainer, that the time goes swiftly by with no feeling of exertion. It is better than jogging while there is a purpose with the intent to communicate with the dog and vice versa.
Größere Kartenansicht

Sept 28 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbus_aucuparia 

Today out my kitchen window the fog bed lifted by 8:30 and I could see the Vogelbeere Trees  (European Rowan or Mountain Ash) leaves which have turned a brilliant red. These trees literally named in German, "Bird Berry" because the small red berries,  are an important food and vitamin source for the birds before the onset of winter.  They are bitter but can be used in Jelly or marmalade. The fall trees in Germany are not as colorful as the northeast of the States but this year I must say that the foliage display is quite beautiful.  The maples are red and gold and I must get out with the camera to capture this year´s magic. G is feeding the cat Mohrle ( as in the English word Moor) pats of butter which are placed on the newspaper on the bench of the breakfast nook.  Not a good way to train an animal, but, if simply given the butter she drops it on the floor. This is somehow more hygenic. I walked to the bakery this morning to pick up fresh baked rolls which being Sunday the bakery is open from 8 to 11, a recent phenomena in Germany.  Up until recently, all shops were closed on Sunday.  They are slowly moving in the direction of other countries but things move here very slowly at times into the future which is not always bad.  When I came here 17 years ago, all stores and shops closed on Saturday at noon and you had to wait till Monday to do any shopping. Needless to say, Saturday morning was a mad rush to pick up any necessities.  During the week, all stores and shops closed at 6 PM and many were closed during the noon hour so the  employees could go home for at least an hour or so. I was working daily in the theater and when I got my mid-day break nothing was open!  Now the major stores are open till 8 on most days of the week as well as Saturday.  Sunday is still a quiet day for most people to stay home and be with their families. Trucks are not allowed on the highways from Saturday evening till midnight on Sunday making travel more pleasant. 

Later after church,  we drive to a small restaurant in a nearby village where we can sample the local Frankish food. The day is sunny and warm for a change as it has been an unseasonably cold September with frost in my garden killing the tomatoes. This sudden warmth is called "Alt Weiber Sommer" or old wife summer akin to our Indian summer.  Federweisser, the  new wine of the season,  is the drink of choice at this time of the year.  Its name is  comprised of Feder-Feather and Weisser-white from the yeast color suspended in the wine.  The yellow jackets circle the plates and glasses as we sit outside on the heavy wooden benches and tables outside of the Gaststätte. 

The rehearsal

I went to my first "Probe" at the theater in Rudolstadt in middle of December 1991, realizing that I had lost my chance to go back to the States with my plane ticket on the 15th of that month. I was on my own in Europe after a whirlwind audition tour that took me to agents and opera houses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in around 6 weeks. I had a credit card and my daughter stationed at that time in the Army in Germany had staked me to some money to help tide me over during the audition time.

The morning was gray and overcast and I had stayed that night with a family in a temporary lodging as I was to get a more permanent rehearsal apartment this day after the rehearsal. The smell of brown coal hung over the city as I was driven in a mad fashion by the conductor, Herr Bach doing a Monte Carlo race in a Trabi. (Trabante, a DDR car that was driven by something like a lawnmower motor and exhuming plumes of smoke out the tailpipe). I began to notice that mornings after one awoke, the need to blow my nose and the black colored mucus on my handkerchief a result of the coal and probably exhaust fumes from Trabis. I was to find out that Rudolstadt is in a valley that contains smoke something like a bowl and there was serious lung problems in this area particularly with children who suffered various lung ailments causing them to be sent to clinics or a relative who lived in a healthier area.

Standing high over the city was Heidecksburg Castle, the former home of the German Prince Friedrich Anton von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who ruled the place in former times. This lovely castle is pictured in many ways throughout Thuringia including on milk cartons from the company of the same name.

I went through the artists entrance at the side of the theater which was a communist inspired, ugly functional architecture, that replaced the lovely former baroque theater that Richard Wagner for one had conducted performances which was torn down probably because it reflected the bourgeoisie . It complimented the then gray unpainted buildings and houses of the town and the then depressing non-colors of the DDR State.

I walked into the rehearsal room to greet for the first time Herr M. and my new colleague Beth J. who was luckily an American and my translator. Herr M. immediately fired stage instructions and ideas at me so that within a half and hour my head began to ache. Herr Bach was on the piano and correcting my German pronunciation as I spoke or sang with repeated interruptions making me exasperated. Beth translated as much as possible and after 4 hours or so I was let go to now schlep my suitcase to my new quarters about a mile or so from the theater.

This is a picture of the Theater in Rudolstadt. My first job!


I arrived in Rudolstadt, Thuringia in early December 1991 for an audition. I stayed at a hotel the night before that had floors of thick gray linoleum and the smell of brown coal smoke left a lasting impression on me to this day.

The theater was tiny and I sang several arias from the stage. The conductor and stage director talked to me after the audition and asked me if I would like to sing a role in their new production scheduled to premier at the end of January 1992.

I went up to the Theater Director's office and he talked in English to me explaining about the performances and the fee which was 5000 DM for around 10 performances. I had never reckoned in Deutschmarks before and it sounded pretty good. The problem was there was no provision for rehearsals and being a beginner in this system, I never even thought about it. That was to come back and haunt me till the summer of 1991. The theater also did not register me right away when the rehearsals began which was illegal but also left no record of work for December and I lost compensation for work later.

I had been offered a contract in Hof at the end of November which I decided to take and the season would begin in summer of 1992. This was one of the last auditions before I was to fly back to the States on the 15th of December. Here was a chance to stay in Germany without having to go back and find some temp work to keep me financially alive till the summer when I would have a full time two year contract with a German theater. I said yes immediately and did a coaching of the opera the next day and then left to complete the rest of my scheduled auditions. I returned shortly before Christmas and plunged into the new opera which was in German and had not only singing but dialogue as well.

Where I am..

I have lived in the town of Hof since the Spring of 1992. I came to this small town in upper Franken to work at the local theater and stayed ever since. I have had this blog for several years now and will try to keep things updated on a regular basis. The weather here (and weather is always an interesting subject) is surprisingly similar to the East Coast where I am from or say from New York west through Ohio into Indiana.. I keep a Yahoo weather update on my home website page to see what is happening from New Jersey, on to Ohio, to Iowa and Minnesota.

When I arrived at the Hof theater for the first time, I had been working at a small theater in East Germany, in the city of Rudolstadt. They had another dialect relating to Thuringia or in German Thüringer and I never even got close to that one as I started to work in German in December of 1991 with only my high school German to get me through rehearsals. http://www.rudolstadt.de/cms/website.php I was lucky to have two colleagues, Beth J. and Ken Phelps who were Americans and they were able to translate for me when the going got tough.

I was gradually starting to understand more of the language as the rehearsals in Hof began for the "Lorelei" by Catalani but I was amazed at the other Americans working at the theater who were so much more advanced than I.

When I arrived at the Hof theater for the first time, I had been working at a small theater in East Germany, in the city of Rudolstadt. They had another dialect relating to Thuringia or in German Thüringer and I never even got close to that one as I started to work in German in December of 1991 with only my high school German to get me through rehearsals. http://www.rudolstadt.de/cms/website.php I was lucky to have two colleagues, Beth J. and Ken Phelps who were Americans and they were able to translate for me when the going got tough.

I was gradually starting to understand more of the language as the rehearsals in Hof began for the "Lorelei" by Catalani but I was amazed at the other Americans working at the theater who were so much more advanced than I.

The Language is German and the local dialect is Frankish which takes a while to get used to. The local paper has a column called the "Hofer Spaziergaenger" (The Hofer Stroller) written in dialect and everyday there is at least one column written in dialect commenting on political or other topical events. I can read it and basically understand what is written but to hear it spoken is sometimes almost impossible to understand. An acquaintance of mine who is at the artist´s entrance to the theater greets me with smiles and talking a mile a minute. I cannot for the life of me understand 70 percent of what he is saying. I nod my head and smile as if I am taking it all in and by straining my ears and trying to catch a word or two I can about make out what he means.

The Theater Canteen at the old theater in Hof (the new one was being built to open in 1995) had a small room with tables and dispensers for coffee and beverages. We would congregate there during the rehearsal breaks to socialize and have a cup of java. In a German theater if you are with a group of people seated together at a table, everybody speaks German (I do not see this in the Czech theaters as later when I worked in the Czech Republic but that is another story) even if 6 out of 7 people in the group are Americans or from other English speaking countries. It is of course out of politeness and the Germans are very polite. They shake hands at every rehearsal and even if you are late to one you interrupt the proceedings to shake hands with the stage director or conductor. Embarrassing to say the least and a good reason to come on time.

Next blog: What it is like as an American to work in a German theater.

Bridge over the Elbe

This was an article in the Herald Trib. that caught my attention. The Elbe or Labe in Czech is the principal river running through Dresden. I have worked in Dresden and over on the other side in the Czech Republic and the river runs through the Saxon "Grand Canyon" reminiscent of the USA Grand Canyon..

Proposed bridge in Dresden fuels protests over modernization

By Nicholas Kulish

Friday, January 4, 2008

DRESDEN: The battle to stop a proposed bridge here has embroiled everything from a tiny endangered bat to the country's reigning literary lion, Günter Grass. Now activists with climbing gear and wooden planks have occupied a centuries-old beech tree to keep it from being felled as part of the construction of the controversial Waldschlösschen Bridge.

The tarps over the makeshift encampments in the beech tree's limbs whipped and banged so fast in a harsh, gusting January wind it sounded like a drum roll. Below, wrapped around the trunk, was a giant white sign decorated with a yellow sun and colorful flowers both absent on a recent winter afternoon, which declared in German, "I want to live."

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known by its acronym Unesco, agrees. The body has warned city and state officials that Dresden could become only the second site ever to lose its place on the World Heritage list if it builds the bridge, regularly described by opponents and even at times by supporters with the word "monstrous."

Unlike, for example, the historic center of Prague, it is the Dresden Elbe Valley, with its meadows and trees combined with its architecture that earned it a coveted spot on the list of 851 sites worldwide.

But backhoes and trucks are already at work, clearing ground from the meadows on both banks of the Elbe River and chainsawing down oak trees for construction of the access roads. While large construction projects are often the subject of legal battles and protests, the matter is particularly sensitive in Dresden.

Prior to World War II, Dresden was known as the "Florence on the Elbe," for its exceptional baroque and rococo architecture. The city was devastated in a series of Allied bombing raids in 1945. That began a long struggle to rebuild. Its status as a World Heritage Site is a point of pride for citizens of Dresden.

Leading a protest against the bridge here last month, Grass, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for works including "The Tin Drum," said that the history of the city's destruction meant "one must be particularly angry and alert that this form of destruction is never repeated."

Opponents have tried everything to stop the bridge from going up. For months construction was stalled after an administrative court ruled in August that steps needed to be taken to ensure that the endangered lesser horseshoe bat was protected. Experts estimate that only around 650 remain in Germany, some in the vicinity of the proposed bridge. But the courts ultimately ruled in November that work could proceed.

Protestors held a sit-in around several old oak trees which had survived the infamous fire bombing during World War II to prevent workers from chopping them down. Their action failed, leading a few days later to the predawn seizure of the beech tree.

Environmentalists from a nonprofit called Robin Wood approached at 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 12 and set up camp in and around the beech tree, where they have remained.

It is not an easy time of year to sit in a tree in the bitterly cold state of Saxony. "Sure is a lot of wind, loud rustling, but otherwise I slept well," said Alexander Gerschner, 42, who on Thursday morning had just come down from a six-hour shift in the tree.

The occupiers said they were being fed with donations by local supporters, receiving gifts of everything from Dresdner Stollen, the famous local Christmas fruitcake, to sushi.

Supporters of the bridge project say it will ease traffic congestion and better link the two sides of the city.

While the population of the state of Saxony, of which Dresden is the capital, has declined from 4.9 million at the time of German reunification to about 4.2 million currently, the rate of car ownership has risen more quickly than the population has fallen, from 423 per 1,000 residents in 1994 to 546 per 1,000 people last year.

Local officials sound exasperated when discussing the battle to build the bridge, which they say was first proposed for that very location back in 1896. Bridge proponents claim clear legitimacy, pointing out that the project won a citywide referendum three years ago with a convincing majority of 67 percent of voters.

"I'm for it," said Doreen Kaufhold, 20, a bookkeeper, waiting for a streetcar in central Dresden. "It would be a relief for traffic." She said she did not believe the bridge would ultimately cost the city its status as a World Heritage site.

"The bridge was disclosed in the application," said Gerhard Glaser, now retired but president of the monuments preservation office of Saxony from 1982 until 2002.

Planners are hoping to sway Unesco with modifications that would make the bridge less obtrusive, allowing them to have their crossing and their heritage status, too.

"We hope that with these changes we can reach a point where Unesco finds it acceptable and we can maintain the World Heritage status," said Michael Sagurna, a senior official in the Saxony state government. "Then we're fairly sure that with these changes the dispute won't be quite so heated as before."

Victor Homola contributed reporting from Berlin.

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Gypsy Baron New Year´s Eve in Bayreuth review in German..

This Picture is of me on

The Horse named Urias in the first act of Zigeunerbaron or "Gypsy Baron". This is the first time I have ever sung on the back of a horse..
Großes Engagement bei einer großen Operette
02.01.2008 16:00
Einsatz, Witz, echtes Sentiment und sichtliche Begeisterung: Das Freie Theater Bayreuth spielte die Operette „Der Zigeunerbaron“

Von Frank Piontek

BAYREUTH. Sage keiner, dass die Operette ein Medium für Schmalz und Blödsinn ist. Die Prinzipalin weist darauf hin: Im „Zigeunerbaron“ ist nicht nur die Rede vom Waffenschmieden, sondern auch von dem, was ein Krieg jenseits der Propaganda ist: „So a Krieg is a Graus, Gott sei Dank is er aus!“ Natürlich spielt das Freie Theater Bayreuth, wenn es, nun schon zum dritten Mal in Folge, eine Silvesteroperette samt Büfett in die Stadthalle bringt, kein politisches Stück – aber der auf den problemlosen Jahresabschluss eingestellte Besucher bekommt ein Menü serviert, das sich sehen lassen kann, und dies gewiss nicht nur, weil das schöne Pferd mit dem unschönen biblischen Namen Urias, das den Tenor zu tragen hat, sich anständig benimmt.

Es ist schon erstaunlich, mit welchem ungeheuren Engagement die Truppe eine der allerersten Operetten über die Bühne bringt. „Der Zigeunerbaron“ ist ein schwieriges, der Oper benachbartes Stück – so benachbart wie Barinkay und der Schweinezüchter Zsupán, die inmitten des liebevoll hergestellten Ambientes (Zigeunerhandel, Sternenhimmel) ihren Konflikt austragen. Dass er sehr komisch ist, dafür sorgt der Vollblutakteur Uwe Zitterbart. Dass er schön sentimentbeladen ist, dafür sorgen James Clark als Barinkay und Nicola Becht als Saffi.

Was den Sängern gelegentlich an Durchschlagskraft fehlt, machen sie durch Charme und Spielfreude wett – tatsächlich: ausnahmslos alle spielen hier. Der Regisseur Adolf Brunner animierte sämtliche Kräfte, es sind wahrlich nicht wenige Sänger, ausgezeichnete Choristen und singende Kinderstatisten. Der Zamir Chor Bayreuth klingt nicht nur ausgesprochen gut, sondern spielt auch die Zigeuner und die Wiener Bevölkerung mit einem Spaß an der Freude, der keine Selbstverständlichkeit ist. Barbara Baiers Arsena, die Mirabella der schönen Claudia Mabell, Markus Seimel als zorniger, liebender Ottokar, die exzellente Barbara Schachtner als Czipra, Christian Theodoridis (ein guter Gast aus der Staatsoperette Dresden) als Conte Carnero, der österreichische Bassist Christian Büchel als Homonay, ein fescher Haudegen mit blitzenden Augen: sie verkaufen Strauss' Werk nicht unter Niveau. Man(n) hat seinen Spaß vermutlich vor allem am Ballett, das sich mehrmals klassisch, im Husarenhabit und als Darstellung ausgewählter Zigeunerinnenschönheiten beteiligt: die Elevinnen der Ballettschule Diroll sind unter der Leitung von Doris Diroll reifer geworden.

Voller Einsatz, Witz, echtes Sentiment und sichtliche Begeisterung: Diese Mischung scheint auch das Publikum zu schätzen. Im nächsten Jahr gibt’s Karl Zellers „Vogelhändler“. Ein auf den Ausnahmezustand eingestellter Operettenfreund sollte jetzt schon seine Kartenbestellung aufgeben: zu Händen der Christl von der Post.
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Mit ungeheurem Engagement brachte das Freie Theater Bayreuth eine der allerersten Operetten über die Bühne: „Der Zigeunerbaron“ von Johann Strauß. Foto: Harbach

German rocket scientists

December 31, 2007
Huntsville Journal
When the Germans, and Rockets, Came to Town
By SHAILA DEWAN

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — In 1950, this cotton market town in northern Alabama lost a bid for a military aviation project that would have revived its mothballed arsenal. The consolation prize was dubious: 118 German rocket scientists who had surrendered to the Americans during World War II, led by a man — a crackpot, evidently — who claimed humans could visit the moon.

Ultimately those German immigrants made history, launching the first American satellite, Explorer I, into orbit in January 1958 and putting astronauts on the moon in 1969. The crackpot, Wernher von Braun, was celebrated as a visionary.

Far less attention, though, has been given to the space program’s permanent transformation of Huntsville, now a city of 170,000 with one of the country’s highest concentrations of scientists and engineers. The area is full of high-tech giants like Siemens, LG and Boeing, and a new biotech center.

Rocket scientists, propulsion experts and military contractors have given the area per capita income levels above the national average and well above the rest of the state.

Huntsville residents regard their city as an oasis, as un-Alabaman as Alabama can be. But they acknowledge that the state’s backwater reputation is a hindrance to recruiting. Local boosters are hoping to use the 50th anniversary of Explorer I on Jan. 31 as a way to promote Huntsville as Rocket City, unveiling a new pavilion, housing a 363-foot Saturn V rocket, at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, a museum and popular tourist attraction.

Even the Germans, who had spent five years cloistered on an Army base near El Paso, knew beforehand of Alabama’s spotty “résumé,” as Konrad Dannenberg, who at 95 is one of the last surviving members of the original von Braun team, put it last week.

“We knew that the people here run around without shoes,” Dr. Dannenberg said, in a tone of deadpan gravity. “They make their money moonshining and that’s what they drink for breakfast, and supper. And so we, in a way, were a little bit disappointed that it was really not that bad.”

The residents were wary of the Germans as well. They knew that most of them had been members of the Nazi Party and that they had built the V-2 rocket for Hitler. But the charismatic von Braun accepted virtually every speaking invitation, winning over Rotarians and peanut farmers.

And the Germans tried hard to assimilate. Von Braun insisted that the scientists speak English if there was so much as a single American, even a janitor, within earshot, said Ernst Stuhlinger, 94, another surviving member of the team. Dr. Stuhlinger was one of many who settled on Monte Sano, the mountain overlooking the town, which reminded the Germans of home.

“People said, ‘If you had just been at war with these people, how can you be so accepting of them?’ ” recalled Loretta Spencer, the 70-year-old mayor of Huntsville, offering a visitor a homemade pecan cookie. “But I think we were just in awe.”

In school, the German children’s diligence posed a challenge. “I remember working real hard in physics class to beat Axel Roth, who later worked for NASA,” Ms. Spencer said. “I beat him by a point on the final exam, and I was really tickled by it.”

The Germans also needed thousands of Americans to staff the missile program. Many who answered the call were “rocket boys” like Homer H. Hickam Jr., author of the memoir by that name, who scavenged together his first rockets in a West Virginia mining town and now lives here. Others were young men from cotton-picking families who went to school on the G.I. Bill.

By the time Explorer I was launched, the residents of Huntsville had so thoroughly adopted the Germans that there was an impromptu celebration. Charles E. Wilson, the former secretary of defense whose severe curtailment of the Germans’ work was blamed by some as having allowed the Soviet Union to beat America to space with Sputnik, was burned in effigy.

And by the mid-1960s, von Braun had so mastered the local culture that when he wanted voters to approve a bond issue for the Space and Rocket Center, he persuaded Bear Bryant, the revered University of Alabama football coach, and Shug Jordan, the rival Auburn coach, to make a television commercial supporting the project.

Rocketry permeated Huntsville, where windows shook and dishes cracked each time the powerful propulsion engines were tested. Children built rockets powered by zinc powder and sulfur, and the mad-scientist-in-the-basement tradition still has a hold. Tim Pickens, a rocket designer who helped a private manned spacecraft win the $10 million X Prize in 2004, attached a 200-pound-thrust engine to a bicycle in his garage here.

City officials trying to capitalize on this kind of ingenuity are irritated that prominent scholars have chosen this moment to scrutinize the von Braun team’s Nazi ties.

A new biography by Michael J. Neufeld portrays von Braun as a man who made a Faustian bargain. Diane McWhorter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Birmingham native, is at work on a book on the space race that compares Nazi ideology to contemporaneous white supremacy in the South.

Most Huntsvillians concluded long ago that the Germans had been coerced into joining the party. And, though skeptical of claims that the scientists were thoroughly apolitical, Ms. McWhorter says Southerners might easily understand that membership in an organization is not necessarily the best indicator of sentiment.

“There were members of the White Citizens Council in the South who were probably less racist than people who weren’t members,” she said.

Residents point to the symphony and the Huntsville branch of the University of Alabama, both nurtured into being by the Germans, and say their enlightened views contributed to the fact that the town had the first integrated elementary school in the state. Dr. Von Braun himself was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan for hiring blacks, said Bob Ward, a Huntsville newsman and von Braun biographer.

Besides, Huntsville is a forward-looking place. The Nazi question “just doesn’t come up,” said Loren Traylor, a Chamber of Commerce vice president. “That was then, this is now.”

Scientology in Germany

Certainly not as we see it in America...Before I could teach in a German highschool, I had to affirm in an oath that I was not a Scientologist...Shades of Tom Cruise!!!

International Herald Tribune
German security officials again seek ban of Scientology

The Associated Press
Friday, December 7, 2007

BERLIN: Germany's top security officials said Friday that they considered the goals of the Church of Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the country's Constitution and would seek to ban the organization.

The interior ministers of Germany's 16 states plan to give the domestic intelligence agency the task of preparing the necessary information to outlaw the organization, which has been under observation here for a decade on suspicions that it "threatens the peaceful democratic order" of the country.

The ministers, and the federal interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, "consider Scientology to be an organization that is not compatible with the Constitution," said Ehrhart Körting, interior minister of Berlin, who presided over a two-day conference.

Sabine Weber, president of the Church of Scientology in Berlin, said she viewed the renewed attempt to ban the organization as a reaction to increasing acceptance of Scientologists in several European countries.

"It is very, very clear that the true picture of what Scientology is about is pushing its way through," Weber said. "The interior ministers are clearly reacting to that."

Scientologists have long battled to end the federal surveillance effort, saying it abuses their rights to freedom of religion. They point to several lower-court rulings in favor of their right to practice in Germany as a religious organization.

The interior ministers gave no specific examples for their decision, but the most recent annual report on extremism compiled by their agencies criticized the organization for disregarding human rights.

That report said that based on "a number of sources," some of which were not disclosed publicly, it had been determined that Scientology "seeks to limit or rescind basic and human rights, such as the right to develop one's personality and the right to be treated equally."

This year, the German government refused to allow the producers of a movie starring Tom Cruise, an adherent of Scientology, to film scenes in the country, although it did not state Scientology as its reason. It later allowed production to go ahead.

The Church of Scientology, based in Los Angeles, was founded in 1954 by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It came to Germany in 1970 and officials estimate it now has about 6,000 members here.

Jounalism problems in Germany

The New York Times


August 10, 2007
Editorial
Harassing Germany’s Media

Germany would seem to be one of the last places to find the government trying to intimidate its journalists these days. News of secret C.I.A. flights that whisked prisoners through the Continent to places where torture is allowed has horrified many Europeans in recent years. The German courts have been in the forefront of condemning “extraordinary rendition” — the practice of loading terrorism suspects onto planes and secretly flying them to Afghanistan or Syria or other particularly dangerous spots for anyone behind bars.

A German court even issued a warrant in January for the arrest of 13 people said to be part of a Central Intelligence Agency “abduction team” involved in the kidnapping and jailing of a German citizen in 2003. Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent, was seized in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan where he was brutally interrogated for five months before being released without charges ever being filed.

Yet despite such widespread concern, the government is investigating at least 17 German journalists from top publications, like Der Spiegel and Die Welt, for their articles about a parliamentary committee investigating these renditions. World news media organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, have rightly demanded an end to what amounts to political intimidation by the German authorities in these cases.

Such attempts to stop the reporting on this important subject not only work against the public interest, in Germany they appear to be illegal. The German high court earlier this year approved a shield law that should protect journalists from this kind of harassment — a protection that so far Congress has withheld from the American press. On the most basic level, if a government prosecutes journalists to find the names of their sources, those sources disappear, and journalists can be intimidated into giving up hard-hitting investigations. What goes on inside a government becomes more and more secret, which is bad news for democracy, and what’s left for the public are official press releases.

Miklós Haraszti, the representative focusing on media freedom for the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe, had it right in his letter earlier this week to Germany’s Minister of Justice. “Initiating proceedings against the media merely in retaliation for their publishing, with the aim of deterring them from similar editorial decisions, is inadmissible in a society proud of its press freedoms.” Germany’s prosecutors should drop their attempts to intimidate their nation’s journalists.

Harvest time early summer

I have often mentioned that Germany is a land that does not have open spaces as in the USA. There is no remaining land that is not owned or belonging to a city or town. That being said, I can take a short walk from my apartment and within a few minutes see such sights as an early summer harvest as shown in the picture. I often take this route as it is a circle from apartment and back along the fields and a tree alley (Trees lining the road on both sides) which takes about 40 minutes. The advantage is I get my exercise and clear my head as well enjoying the familiar route while observing the changes of the seasons. I have photographed this area many times...

Today I read in the local paper that for every euro in Germany, 53 percent goes to the State and 47 percent for the individual who possesses it. The 53 percent is taxes, retirement, health insurance, church ( if you are a declared Lutheran or Catholic) added value tax, or whatever they figure they can take from that euro. Nevertheless, Germany is still the 3rd or 4th richest nation in the world.

Today was also a visit to my local dentist for a filling and on the wall of the office was this picture which was painted by a friend of the dentist. It depicts a land or large island in the shape of a tooth and all the landmarks have to do with aspects of dentistry. The Land is called "Dental Land". The two dentists names are shown as towns or areas and all the assistants are on the map. There are the molar islands to the right, and nerve rivers etc. My phone camera was used to take the picture and therefore it is too fuzzy to see the names. I will say that in between getting your teeth taken care of it is an interesting object similar to a Tolkien novel with its map to take your mind of that dreaded drill.

The picture of the beer garden and lake was taken a few weeks ago as I made an evening bicycle trip stopping off at one of my favorite "Watering" holes for a Bratwurst in a roll and naturally a "made in Hof" beer.

Monday in Germany

The weather has been a bit "anstaendig" which means it is nice and then suddenly rainy but for my garden everything is growing like in a tropical rainforest. I harvested one of the red currant bushes in my garden which was so heavy, part of the fruit was in the mud in the strawberry patch. Red currant jelly is fantastic as it has sweet sour taste and the currant berries are the best, fresh on vanilla ice cream or on cereal.

A busy weekend with rehearsals for an upcoming concert on Sunday and a sense of relief now that there was a compromise attributed to the German Chancelor Angela Merkel and Poland´s insistence on not ratifying a new treaty for the European Union. see link

belated blog

I have been remiss to publish my latest thoughts and reports from Germany and I will attempt to bring anyone up to date on what is happening. The Bavarian administration shot down the planned building of a bigger airport in Pirk which is our local airport and quite handy for getting to Frankfurt. It can only serve propeller planes and the lengthening would let us naturally go further than Munich or Frankfurt etc. There is a lot of politics involved as well as the financing but I heard today that Hof will shrink from about 48,000 to 40,000 inhabitants in the future which means money loss from the govt. and the EU. This will affect everything from culture to business and so ergo the need for an airport that can keep attracting tourism in and out, business etc. check this link out in English

Today I finally stirred my stumps and took a bike ride over to the lake which has a great beer garden and one can refuel for the journey home.

We are having hot, humid weather lately which is traditionally more in the middle of July early August. The good news is that I can plant tomatoes outside instead of only in my green house. Here is a picture of my strawberry patch which has been yielding the sweet fruit since the end of May.

The next letter will discuss the problem of Poland, Germany and the EU.

preserving the ice

The long dry spell is over and finally the garden will get enough water. I noticed an article in the newspaper and this picture of workers covering the glacier at the Zugspitze in Germany. The purpose is not to save the glacier but at least to get 15 more years of skiing if all goes well. They had to begin a week earlier than usual as a result of the abnormally hot April. ( hottest in 200 years )

Do it yourself shopping

Today I was at the butchers down the road to pick up some fresh ground meat for a chili dish that I will be making tomorrow. You can go to the supermarket or chain store like in the States but you don´t know where the meat comes from. I know at my local store that the meat is from locally slaughtered cattle even if it is trucked in from some other area of Germany or the European Union. The wurst or coldcuts are made locally and so one has a feeling of some sort of security. The act of going is also different in some ways than shopping at the big supermarket in the USA. It is down the street and the place is small so bumping into neighbors is more likely. You have to stand in line most of the times as the butcher that I shop at is quite popular and is known for its quality of offerings. You can even pick up a wine or pasta to accompany your selection of meat with tips and offerings of the week. I like the feeling and today as is always on Fridays and Saturday mornings there is a fruit and vegetable stand outside. The fun thing about this sort of business is the proprietors really hawk their produce and make commments about the taste and freshness of whatever they are selling. You get instant commentary which again makes for a feeling of being connected to the food chain. A good produce seller enhances the business takein as well as I think ensuring that the best product is being offered to the customer. Next to the butcher is a bakery so in a sense you can find most of what you need for a breakfast buffet or evening meal. The bread is baked fresh daily and there is a myriad of different types including sweet rolls and cakes.
I think that in the long run it is also more environmentally friendly.

Latest news from Germany

I was perusing the paper this morning and several things were of interest. This was the warmest winter since 1901 with the highest temperature registered in Sigmarszell, Bavaria at 66.2 degrees Fahrenheit on the eighth of December. Thanks to the mild weather the storks have returned early from their winter quarters in Spain. In the past the birds that came back around the beginning of March were called "Frühankommer" in German and early birds by us in English.

The opinion articles concerned freedom of the press and here is the link in Engleutsch which is English combined with German but you will get the point. Another opinion article was the idea of having a free day from autos traffic which was prefaced by "Why not?" this can be seen at this link.

One of the most charming things about driving to North Germany near the North Sea is the lovely houses with reed roofs. Here is an article about the puzzling attack of mold affecting the roofs.

Hof germany and the Oscars

Naturally we are proud of the first German in 80 years to win an Oscar but the real story is that we have the Hofer Film Festival each year here and the quoted article (see Link) is the opinion that without the experience of the Hof Film festival and the help from the Festival Director Heinz Badewitz he would probably have come as far as he did. (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)

What is funny is in the online translation Mr. Badewitz is called Mr. Bath Joke which is actually what Bade and Witz mean separately. We have as many funny names in English such as "Culpepper" to begin with.