Berlin

Berlin. ‘Oh my’ is all I can think to say right now. It is Friday. I have been here for 5 days now, and the crash course on what is what here continues. I feel, though, that my brain is full and cannot process another drop of input. This place is HUGE, and yes, I have to scream that word as I still cannot fathom it. It is so much bigger than I have ever imagined and I have only seen a small percentage so far.

The apartment search is becoming a bit more problematic than I had hoped it would be. Berlin has been overbuilt in the past 10 years or so; that incoming investment to renovate and build in previously blighted areas of the east has resulted in plenty of rentable space. The prospected influx of pilgrims arriving to a formerly unavailable Mecca of German pop and high culture was a bit over-hyped, I guess. This should translate into a very good thing for us. But, after looking at several apartments and rifling through the hundreds available on-line, we have not had superb luck yet. We are still learning the trade secrets, I guess. And, amongst those, one of the most disappointing to us, being truly children of the computer age, is the fact that, in order to find a really good apartment, the kind that get snapped up almost immediately after going public, one has to get the newspapers that feature the apartment ads on Saturday, weed your way through the secret lingo (you know, like in real estate ads, when it says “cozy”, they mean “tiny”), select what you’d like to see, and go to set “seeing times” that mostly occur the very next day, on Sunday. This seems to me to be not just a throwback method reminiscent of ancient days, but extremely ineffective especially in that several photos of the place are certainly not a feature of the newspaper ads as they are on the internet sites. The internet sites, though, seem to only feature the apartments that no one wants, some of them laying open for months on end before being snatched up out of desperation. I can only hope that said desperation will not come too soon for us, as it seems obvious that, in perfect German style, things simply run at a much slower pace that I would expect. That being said, tomorrow’s beginning of the whirlwind tour of potential apartments will certainly add another blister to my throbbing collection. (I think I have walked here more in the past 5 days than I have in the past 3 months in Baden-Württemberg.) I’ll let you know how it goes. Supposedly, many people show up to the best apartments, forcing you to elbow your way through the droves to see the goods. Then comes the competition to show who has the most preferable resumé, complete with several documents ensuring that we will not be deadbeats as renters. No one checked my credentials for the apartment in Pforzheim. But, hey, if this means getting a dream apartment where we will be happy staying for years, I am all for it. Besides, it can’t be any worse than the under-the-clothing kind of groping going into a credit check, etc. that one has to go through to rent a closet somewhere in America.

Truthfully, I am going through a rather pervasive culture shock at this point. My worries will, of course be greatly dampened when we get a place and the actual moving is over. But, I have the feeling that the idea of going from a place where choices were limited immediately to one where choices of all kinds are limitless will be one which sticks with me for some time. Of course, many of my friends already assume that I am a big city kind of person. I seem to be the last that will be informed of this.

As a side note, amongst the beautiful surprises that I have come across here, is one of special mention: I can listen to NPR here on a regular radio! Unbelievable. I feel like the country mouse on his first trip to the big, bad city.

My Icy Tits. And stuff.

My God, Germans love ice cream. I mean, yeah, they love ice cream like any other culture of the world loves ice cream. But, there’s something about the Springtime coming, poking its head out of every crocus climbing with light speed out of the barely-thawed German ground, that practically forces Germans to buy a scoop just about every time they pass an ice cream stand.

And, you know, the Germans being the Germans, they have the whole thing down to a fine art. Ice cream here is not just ice cream…it is Italian ice cream, which I can vouch for—it’s some of the best I’ve ever tasted. Some of these little shops put Baskin Robbins to shame with their flavor choices. And, the secret? It’s made fresh, usually in the store, by the very guy who scoops it out for you. Or it could be his son. Or daughter. It’s a family business. (No, I don’t mean “family” like that…)

And then there are the ice cream parlors. That’s right, like the olden days. (I am just sorry that this being a foreign country, I can’t work the word “jerk” into a sentence and feel confident about its anachronistic harmlessness.) Can I get an “amen”? These places are decked out like some fancy restaurant, beautiful white leather, brass everywhere. The waiters, all Italian, of course, take your order from a menu that resembles the lexicon offered by the Cheesecake Factory, complete with glossy pictures of some of the frozen delights piled high with sprinkles, cookies, and chocolates of all kinds. No Sunday stroll would be complete here without a sundae that even the chintziest German can rationalize away as a reward for his weekly Spaziergang. He’ll fork out upwards of 3, 4, or 5 euros. I thought I was getting gypped the first time I considered what I had just ordered, until the moment the confection arrived at my table. If my normal indulgence of a scoop or two could be considered a bungalow, these 5€ crowning achievements must be at least the Chrysler Building. Well, just trust me, they are a sight to behold.

The weather has been in the 70s (F) for almost two weeks now. And, you can’t walk more than two steps without seeing someone with a cone in their hand. Perhaps the worst of them all is a fella named Christoph, who thinks that it is his droit de seigneur to have 3 scoops every time he steps out the door.

It’s just another weird German obsession, one which seems to be genetically imprinted, because I have yet to see a German who doesn’t celebrate the blossoms of Spring without the obligatory icy balls of sugar overload.

Maybe it’s their way of claiming victory over the dreary German winter. The winter is personified in balls of ice cream, in suspended animation, immobile and vulnerable with a bit of flavor added to not make the procedure seem so grotesque. The German looks at the hard winter sitting idly before him, he considers it, cradled by its little waffle friend, and takes that first bite, slowly gnawing away at that which gave him one grey day after another, slowly killing his spirit over months. This monster had tormented and even killed generations of other Krauts before him. Our proverbial German savors that bite, and thinks, “Vinter you are MINE. I detroy you!” Insert evil laugh here. (But, you know, the kind of laugh that only cackled inside his head, because, this is like a thought the guy is having, and not an actual like talking out loud moment. And stuff.)

Maybe they just like ice cream and it’s too damn cold to eat it when your nipples are so hard because of the cold that you come home to find your favorite blouse completely shredded above the midriff. I hate it when that happens.

Nathan Gunn, God's cruel joke.

I went to the University of Illinois with Nathan Gunn and he was one of those singers that, when he got up to sing, everyone's heart sank. There are certain unwritten rules for opera, ok? Most of us are fat; it's just that simple. So, when someone who looks like a friggin' model gets up and sounds gorgeous, well, it made us want to jump out of our seats, pull out our swiss army knives and execute him à la Caesar in March. Some things in life are just too good and must be destroyed.

A message from the pulpit. "Pulpit", that's a funny word. It almost sounds naughty.

Some wonderful friends of ours are strong churchgoers who have been enjoying lots of Bible study of late. I don’t know if it is because of my upbringing, or just that I, myself, am somewhat conservative in some areas of my life, but I seem to attract, and relate well, to fundamentalists of all sizes and shapes. Anyway, I was visiting these friends of mine and we had a lengthy and interesting theological discussion over a sumptuous dinner that the hostess had prepared. In the conversation, I basically quoted the movie “The God Who Wasn’t There”, a fantastic documentary that I recommend everyone, whether a strong believer or not, watch. There is a part of the movie where they surmise how the Gospels could not possibly have been written by anyone who actually witnessed any of Jesus’ miracles. I remember finding this terribly interesting at the time and passed it on at this recent dinner. But, after my hosts kindly disagreed, because they believe in the Bible’s 100% infallibility, I realized that I had no facts to back it up.

I did some research on this, and came up with these interesting facts, in this case about the Gospel of Matthew:

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know, but I just don’t have a theology library next door) “The majority of scholars date the gospel between the years 70 and 100.”

The life expectancy of people from the Classical Roman times until the Middle Ages was 20-30 years. By the absolute latest possibility, Jesus died in 36 AD. So, someone who was a young man (old enough to observe and understand Christ’s miracles) of let’s say 15 would have been dead long before 70 AD when Matthew was written. If Matthew had been 15 in 36 AD (by all accounts he was portrayed as an adult, so older than 15), he would have been 49 by 70 AD--the earliest that Matthew is thought to have been written. The possibility of someone reaching that age in that era of human civilization would not just be rare, but very much unlikely. This is why most theologians believe that the Gospel of Matthew was not actually written by Matthew.

“Beginning in the 18th century, however, scholars have increasingly questioned that traditional view, and today the majority agree Matthew did not write the Gospel which bears his name.” (Ehrman, Bart D. (2004). The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. New York: Oxford, pp. 92-92. ISBN 0-19-515462-2.) I find it interesting that even theologians of the 18th Century were questioning the validity of the authorship of the first gospel, yet today there are still millions who believe it because it is the book’s title, and, therefore, author. Of course, they are “taught” by equally conservative ministers whose understanding of the Bible is a little too “reading is believing” mixed with the obligatory “blind faith” that they teach.

All of this should not force one to doubt Christ’s divinity or the miracles of Christ, in my opinion. It should, however, dissuade one from believing in the absolute truth of a book that was transcribed by imperfect men. In my opinion, it is the message of Christ, which should be foremost in our minds, it is, after all, the real proof of His divinity: his divine message, which transformed the world as we know it.

I feel that Christians who refuse to pull back the veil to have a real look at the Bible are fooling themselves for many reasons. But, my job as a thinking person and an open-minded individual is to remove the veil completely and confront, head-on, the many possibilities of the Bible and its meaning. Why is it that theologians who spend their entire life learning the languages of the Bible, learning about sociology, anthropology, history, archeology, etc. are, by an extreme majority, liberals on the question of the Bible’s infallibility?

Herr Doktor. Or, maybe not, after all.

I guess I'm going to have to take my qualifications into the bureau that they're talking about in this article once we get to Berlin, otherwise, I cannot insist that people use my title. I'm not really into that, but just in case. Baden-Württemberg doesn't observe this old German law, originally intended to not put lesser educational systems on par with its own (it was never intended to slight America, instead third world doctors of all kinds insisting on being called "Doktor.")

Non-European PhDs In Germany Find Use Of 'Doktor' Verboten

By Craig Whitlock and Shannon Smiley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 14, 2008; Page A01

BERLIN, March 13 -- Americans with PhDs beware: Telling people in Germany that you're a doctor could land you in jail.
At least seven U.S. citizens working as researchers in Germany have faced criminal probes in recent months for using the title "Dr." on their business cards, Web sites and résumés. They all hold doctoral degrees from elite universities back home.
Under a little-known Nazi-era law, only people who earn PhDs or medical degrees in Germany are allowed to use "Dr." as a courtesy title.

The law was modified in 2001 to extend the privilege to degree-holders from any country in the European Union. But docs from the United States and anywhere else outside Europe are still forbidden to use the honorific. Violators can face a year behind bars.

Ian Thomas Baldwin, a Cornell-educated researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, has stopped calling himself "Dr." ever since he was summoned for interrogation by police two months ago on suspicion of "title abuse."
"Coming from the States, I had assumed that when you get a letter from the criminal police, you've either murdered someone or embezzled something or done something serious," said Baldwin, a molecular ecologist. "It is absurd. It's totally absurd."
No one has questioned the legitimacy of his degree or whether he has the right to conduct research here. But going by "Dr." is verboten. If he wants to refer to his doctorate, German law dictates that he identify himself as "Prof. Ian Thomas Baldwin, PhD, Cornell University."

Baldwin confessed in a telephone interview that "there's no question I'm guilty as charged." But he hopes prosecutors will give him a break.

In his defense, he noted that the Max Planck Institute has always addressed him as "Prof. Dr. Baldwin" since it offered him a job a decade ago, and nobody warned him he might be in legal peril if he did likewise.

The proper use of honorifics is no small matter in Germany, a society given to formality where even longtime neighbors insist on addressing each other using their surnames. Those with advanced degrees like to show them off, and it is not uncommon to earn more than one. A male faculty member with two PhDs can fully expect to be called "Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt," for example.

In effect, forcing Americans to forsake their titles amounts to a social demotion. "It's an indication of the hierarchization of German society," said Gary Smith, director of the American Academy in Berlin. "Germans are much more status-conscious about these things, and the status is real."

Smith holds a doctorate from Boston University and has tempted fate by answering to "Dr. Smith" during the two decades he's lived in Germany. He said he was told years ago that there is a legal way for foreign PhDs and MDs to register for permission to use the appellation, but he has never bothered.

"It wasn't worth the trouble of doing anything about it," he said. "It's really an absurd situation in a globalized world."
The German doctor rule has been in effect since the 1930s, but it has been only sporadically enforced in recent years.
That changed last fall, when an anonymous tipster filed a complaint with federal prosecutors against seven Americans at the prestigious Max Planck Society, which operates 80 scientific research institutes across Germany. Federal authorities forwarded the complaint to prosecutors and police in at least three states, who decided to take action.

Joerg Stolz, the chief prosecutor in the city of Jena, which is investigating Baldwin and another researcher at the Max Planck Institute there on suspicion of title abuse, said those two probes were "near closure."

He said his office had recommended to a judge against filing charges. In that event, he said, the matter would be referred to the Cultural Ministry in the state of Thuringia, which could still decide whether a civil fine is warranted.

Detlef Baer, a spokesman for the ministry, said officials planned to drop both cases. "We spoke with the parties involved and determined they had no criminal intent," he said. "They were given instructions as to how they can refer to their titles," by citing the degree but not calling themselves doctors.

Another American investigated by police is an astrophysicist with a doctorate from Caltech and membership in the German Academy of Sciences.

The criminal investigations have alarmed higher education officials in Germany, where U.S. researchers are in high demand and treated as blue-chip recruits. Last week, state education ministers met in Berlin and recommended that the law be modified so anyone holding a doctorate or medical degree from America could be addressed as "Dr." without running afoul of the police.
"This is a completely overdone, mad, absolutely ridiculous situation," said Barbara Buchal-Hoever, head of Germany's central office for foreign education. "We are talking about highly acclaimed researchers here. . . . The people who have pressed charges must be gripers or troublemakers who wanted to make a totally absurd point."

Even if the proposal is adopted, however, it would extend the privilege only to people with degrees from about 200 U.S. universities accredited by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Anyone with a PhD from Canada, Japan or the rest of the non-European world would still be excluded.

For now, the old law remains on the books. It is unclear when, or if, Germany's state parliaments will change it.
So the next time Dr. Condoleezza Rice (PhD, University of Denver) or even German-born Dr. Henry Kissinger (PhD, Harvard) pay a visit to Berlin, they may want to stick with the title "secretary of state."

So true. Again.