august: cleveland county

2016 is finally coming to an end. I know that I'm not sad to see it go, even though I had some amazing experiences this year. Austria has a good month, but Germany ended the year on a terror-filled note that brought further (in my opinion, unmerited) criticism to the country's asylum system.

Alexander Van der Bellen won the second presidential election in Austria! There were fears that he would lose since the first election was very close and the American election had just occurred. However, many are pointing out that the Austrian presidency is largely ceremonial, and Austria shouldn't overlook the influence of the far-right Freedom Party in the coming year.

In German politics, Angela Merkel was re-elected head of the Christian Democratic Union during that party's meeting in early December. The SPD, however, won't decide who their leader will be in the upcoming elections until January 2017.

Berlin ushered in a red-red-green government comprised of the Left Party, the SPD, and the Greens. Since I wrote my thesis over the possibility of this coalition on the national level, I'm thrilled to see that Berlin has joined Thuringia in this coalition style! Unlike in Thuringia, however, the SPD is the senior partner in this coalition.

"Postfaktisch" was declared the Word of the Year by the Society for German Language in Wiesbaden. Related to that, Buzzfeed released an article talking about how many of the pro-Trump Twitter accounts appeared to be refocusing themselves against Merkel in light of the Berlin attack and the country's upcoming election.

I really truly love the city of Leipzig. If I had to choose between visiting Leipzig or Dresden, Leipzig wins in an instant based on the train station alone. However, I have such mixed feelings about RB Leipzig and their rise to the top of the Bundesliga. This article from The Washington Post manages to voice many of my concerns. Given that my current favorite team is FC Bayern Muenchen, I really don't have room to hate a team for being popular or corporate-owned. It's hard to hate the first Bundesliga team in years from the East Side of Germany. (Hertha Berlin was in West Berlin during the Cold War.) I'm going to try to keep an open mind until I can watch them some more - I didn't get to watch any matches while I was working on the campaign, so I'm out of the loop right now.

Locomore, a crowd-funded train company, just started making long-distance trips. Before they started, German Rail had no competition for long-distance domestic trips, so it will be interesting to see how this progresses! They've naturally been getting a lot of press - arte visited them on their first trip, where they started off late but ended up early in Berlin. Right now, the tickets are cheaper than a German Rail ticket purchased with a 50% discount card; hopefully this keeps up until I can visit and try it for myself!

Now I'll take it over to the less academic, more entertaining part of the Internet.

Michael Buchinger made a video talking about everyday sexism that I enjoyed.

I've really been loving Lucie Kallies's blog as well as Tea and Twigs. It's an easy way to keep up with written German that doesn't feel like homework.


I tend to mention my favorite YouTube channel in every post, but Lena's last video from the US really nails how it feels to leave a country that you've come to love, but still be excited to see friends and family at home.

And since it's almost Silvester....here's Dinner for One.



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Photo via Unsplash

Erfurter Weihnachtsmarkt wird mit Botonsperren geschützt. #breitschreidplatz pic.twitter.com/58Uo4Rc0qT

— ZDF Thüringen (@ZDFerfurt) December 20, 2016

As always, I admire how German police and media have responded to this crisis. They are careful to avoid speculation and revealing the identity of suspects. They released a suspect when there was insufficient evidence to hold him. More media and police should follow their example of not airing every conspiracy theory to the general public; it helps ensure dignity for victims as well as innocent bystanders. It's honorable to stick to the law even when a terrible act has occurred to ensure that proper justice can be carried out.

I remember first hearing about the “East Coast Liberal Media Elite” when I was 17 and Sarah Palin was running for Vice President. This was part of her wider point that “real America” was not represented by the media and people in the central and southern parts of the country were not being given a fair shake. I’ve been thinking more about this after reading this article on vox. 

I fall within so many categories of “coastal liberal elite.” I have a BA in German and a MA in International Studies. I’ve lived in Germany while participating in a government-funded program. I’ve well-travelled within U.S. and Europe. In addition to voting for Hillary Clinton in both the primary and general election, I worked on her campaign in Philadelphia. I’m twenty-five and unmarried. I don’t have children. I love public media, and I just drank a smoothie than contained chia seeds. I’m so privileged by both my whiteness and my place in the middle class.

However, most of these qualities are a product of my life in “real America.” I grew up in rural Oklahoma, attended public high school, then went to the Universities of Arkansas and Oklahoma for my degrees. I learned German in Arkansas, and my experiences there were why I was able to live in Europe for a brief time. After I got my BA, I felt that I still hadn’t learned enough, so I went to graduate school in Oklahoma. You can be liberal and experience the world anywhere, especially with the internet. Your location doesn’t determine your life.

I’ve always been a bit different from my high school classmates, and these differences have increased with age. I am in the minority because I have neither a spouse nor children. I can’t see myself living in Oklahoma forever, mostly because job opportunities that I find interesting are generally not located here. I don’t enjoy stereotypical Oklahoman activities such as hunting or going to high school basketball games, but that doesn’t make me less Oklahoman. I’m still as much a product of this state as my classmates who never left my hometown.

Like the vox article says, it’s not a matter of geography; it’s a matter of economics. Growing up, both my parents worked salaried jobs. I was in the minority in my school, since many of my classmates were growing up in single-parent families and didn’t have the privileges that I did. Some people from my parents’ church and extended family have never actually said that I need to grow up and get a normal job with the requisite husband and kids, but they always respond to my stories with a polite awkwardness that shows that my way of life makes them uncomfortable.

One thing that people seem to forget is that “real America” has the same internet that the coastal part of the country has. (There are some exceptions to this; President Obama’s major visit to Oklahoma was to visit areas of the Choctaw Nation where people don’t have internet access.) This country has so many things in common; people are people. No part of this country is more real than any other because any type of person can emerge from any part of this country.

Hello everyone! I have pulled myself out of the campaign fog long enough to put together some links from German internet this month. They're mostly about food - this post is klein, aber fein!

The Day of the Kiosk happened earlier this month.
Which goods are "typical German?"

Dynamo Dresden beat RB Leipzig! I'm not a huge fan of RB Leipzig, even though I like Leipzig as a city much better than Dresden.
The DFB Cup is always interesting - last year Jena knocked off Hamburg in the first round. This year, Lotte beat Werder Bremen!

Finally, enjoy these pretty photos from the train stations of the year!

My thesis has finally been approved to the Oklahoma online database! You can read it here: https://shareok.org/handle/11244/44225.

It's about the left wing parties and how they can overcome ten years of power by the center-right CDU. I'm most fond of the parts about Thuringia.

Hi everyone!

I haven't had much time to keep up with German politics/culture this month since I started a new job in Pennsylvania. Truth be told, I don't really see myself being able to keep up with Germany for the next few months with the amount of work I'll be doing. So instead, have a few impressions about my life in Pennsylvania.

Wawa is the actual best in that you can make your own iced coffee there.
Mt. Airy is super fancy.
SEPTA is not the worst, and is definitely better than driving into Center City Philadelphia.
Reading Terminal Market is the stuff dreams are made of. I had the best pretzel of my life there + bought some super cheap produce.
Driving is...interesting. People like to take risks and punctuate their risky driving with the melody of a thousand car horns.
Old & historic churches probably don't have air conditioning.
The roads are bad here too.
Full service gas stations still exist (?!)
Philadelphia is much closer to New Jersey than I realized.
The Pennsylvania turnpike costs around $40 if you take it all the way across the state.
Related - you will spend all your money on parking if you drive to Center City.
These people are obsessed with Dunkin Donuts.
The houses are fairytale pretty and the weather is (relatively) mild.
It feels a weird halfway point between Germany and Oklahoma here, culturally, meteorologically, and politically.
Life here is lovely.

It has been a month for international politics. It started with ridiculous fans at Euro 2016 and ended with the Brexit referendum. However, I'm still going to soldier on with my list of links that I bookmarked throughout this month.

The Bundestag voted to recognize the Armenian genocide earlier this month, which certainly didn't help German-Turkish relations, but was celebrated by Armenians in Germany and abroad as a major step for their people. This article (in English) discusses how the resolution was almost unanimous and possible difficulties with Turkey in the future.

Before the Euro 2016 tournament began, an AfD politician remarked that people wouldn't want Boateng as their neighbor. This is part of a larger trend in European soccer where even the national team isn't national enough for the far right.

Related to that is the radio stream I've been using to listen to the German games in Euro 2016. I don't have cable, so WDR has been a lifesaver!

I've been enjoying reading articles from Thueringen24, which has excellent local coverage of Thuringia. I believe they just launched last month; it's really nice to read reports from my German home! This article about a project by exchange students at the technical college was really interesting.

For anyone wondering at home, I finally finished my thesis. Of course, the Rot-Rot-Gruen campaign didn't start on Twitter until I was almost done with my edits - they would have been such a good resource for me! Additionally, Bodo Ramelow, governor of Thuringia, discussed Rot-Rot-Gruen in Berlin earlier this month. This discussion was set off by the news that German President Gauck won't see reelection; some believe that a Rot-Rot-Gruen government will be important for deciding the next president.

This episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class is all about the women of Bauhaus. I love Bauhaus architecture and art, so this podcast was right up my alley!

I'm always excited to see a good photoset from East Germany.

I'm still shocked that Brexit is actually going to happen. Here's the twitter round-up of the EU meetings the Tuesday after the vote.

Finally, it's been 40 years since the first woman was allowed to anchor the nightly news in Germany. She came back to talk about her historic role and to celebrate this anniversary. However, the first woman to do play-by-play commentary for the European soccer tournament was met with threats and complaints earlier this month, which shows that there's still work to do for equality in television.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives staged a day-long sit-in on the House floor in order to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with Congressional inaction on gun violence following the shooting in Orlando. During the sit-in, Congress was in recess, so the usual cameras were shut off in accordance with House rules. As a result, members streamed their experiences on Periscope and Facebook, which had the end effect of making the entire thing much more accessible to millennials than it would have been if it had only been on CSPAN.



The European Parliament has a history of sometimes dramatic behavior, like earlier this year when a Greek MEP was thrown out of the European Parliament for racist remarks, but this week was much more exciting.

First UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage was booed as he made a victory lap of sorts in the European Parliament and proceeded to tell his coworkers that they knew nothing of work or job creation.

Legislatures have been fun to watch this week, but I hope that things calm down soon so that these men and women can get back to their less exciting but very important jobs.

If you can find Alexanderplatz, you can find a drugstore because that area has two.

Pinterest always tries to recommend posts to me about packing tips for a trip to Europe. However, most of these posts seem to be under the impression that Europe is a third world continent without drugstores. Germany, for example, has two successful drugstore chains called DM and Rossmann. Both carry very similar (if not the precise same) products as American drugstores, and the prices are usually quite reasonable.

This month, the biggest issues in German politics were the German-Turkish relationship and press freedom in Germany. The German comedy program extra3 made a satirical video about Turkish President Erdogan. This led to the German ambassador to Turkey being called in for a lecture, and prompted German comedian Jan Boehmermann to recite a poem about the leader that was quite nasty. The biggest part of the issue is that there is a section of German law that prohibits insulting foreign leaders. There's been a ton of coverage in both German and English, so have fun!

The Atlantic
Newsweek
bento - What young Turkish-Germans think about Erdogan (German)
Poll: The majority of Germans think Merkel is wrong about Erdogan (German)
German reporter forced to leave Turkey (Older, but still interesting)
Commentary: Give Back Your Medal of Freedom, Merkel! (German)

The rest of my links for this month don't follow a theme - they're just things that I found interesting:

bento reported on how the German emo kids of the 2000s turned out.
Berlin has truly out-Berlined itself: a vegan restaurant opening was shut down by the police.
Angela Merkel gave a speech on the 500th anniversary of the Reinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law)
The 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster is especially pertinent in eastern Germany, where the government gave children contaminated milk.
This article about how German coalitions are often named after rather obscure national flags was interesting, since I find the practice both amusing and confusing.
Erfurt got free WiFi in all its trams! This almost makes up for them taking the cozy East German-era trams out of service.
In adorable news, the governor of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow, is now godfather to one girl from a set of quadruplets born to a refugee family in Jena late last year.

Finally, I can't decide if I like this band or not:

I love a good listicle. As such, I thought I'd put together my top twitter accounts for German news and politics in English and German. The accounts are in no particular order; they're mostly ones that either I follow or that I check from time to time. I don't follow as many English accounts because German ones are usually more up-to-date for German news, but there are still some really good ones out there!

English

SPIEGEL English: All the magic of Der Spiegel....but in English! This account is usually updated several times a day, which is still much less than the official Spiegel account.

DW - Global is a good source of German-based world news in English, which is nice for those of you who are looking for some less US-centric world news.

GPPi is a Berlin-based think tank, so if you're into more policy-based analysis, this is a good one for you!

German

Obviously, Der SPIEGEL is one of my top accounts for German language news. They update quite frequently - I'd put it just below the amount BBC World updates - so it can feel a bit much at times.

DW - Deutsch is the German-language news account for Deutsche Welle.

I really enjoy ZDF Thueringen for keeping up with news from the area where I used to live. Of course, the major stations have regional accounts for different parts of German, so you can find one that suits your regional interests quite easily!

SWP Berlin is another think tank. Sometimes posts are in English, but they are more often in German.

You can also follow all sorts of political parties by region, parliamentary group, and politician, just like in the US. For example, here are the parliamentary accounts for the CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens, and Left.

Bonus: I enjoy reading the Lebensmittelklarheit account as well - they're a governmental group that works for clarity and truth on food packaging.
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Cover photo: Unsplash

.@b_riexinger - könnte auch #Kanzler ;-) #FeelTheBernd #LTW16 #BWPlusSozial pic.twitter.com/ayIGtiSPH6

— fds BaWü (@fds_linke_bw) February 5, 2016

The Washington Post has some interesting photos from Karneval earlier this month. The most controversial was a float which features Donald Trump with the slogan "Make Fascism Great Again."

Also, Thuringian governor Bodo Ramelow visited the Pope at the end of the month, which made this thesis-writer very happy.

pic.twitter.com/vvfCDmapeM

— Bodo Ramelow (@bodoramelow) February 26, 2016

Get out the vote campaigns are usually an indicator of how close it is to a major election. There are so many good reasons to become an informed citizen and go and vote for your representatives. However, if you can't be convinced for reasons of self-interest, please think of the others.

In 2011, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that 13.1 million non-citizens live legally in the United States. That's 13.1 million people who live in a country where they cannot choose their own representatives.

On top of that, the United States' place as a leader in international affairs means that decisions made here don't just stop at our borders. Decisions made by American leadership change lives around the world on a daily basis. Every single day, thousands of Americans come into contact with foreign nationals through programs such as the Peace Corps and the Fulbright Program that are federally funded. Worldwide, many people are living in areas where USAID is present and Americans are providing relief.

Americans use current trade laws to purchase objects made in foreign countries. Changes in these laws could have impact on those people in foreign countries who may have moved from the countryside to a factory-filled city to find a better life.

You know that University of Texas slogan that they used on their commercials? It is actually true on election day in the United States: what starts here changes the world.

Please vote in the presidential primary and the election in November.

If you live in Oklahoma and you know you'll be busy on November 18, apply for an absentee ballot here or consider voting early.

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Title photo: pre-1959 flag from Unsplash

The Financial Diet is one of my favorite websites. It focuses on helping people in their twenties make responsible financial choices, and I love to contribute to it. Here's a new article I wrote if you're interested.

The Democratic primary race, which features two well-qualified candidates, has at times become a race centered on language and the words which Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders use to describe themselves and their campaigns. This is coupled with wider rhetoric about how we view America and what kind of country and society we live in, along with the society and country we want to see.

Source: Sanders Campaign Website

"Revolution" is a word that the Sanders campaign is fond of using to set itself apart from the other candidates on both sides of the aisle. It signifies that a Sanders presidency would be a significant departure from previous presidencies. This plays into the American idea that revolution is inherently good. Since we were children, we all learned about the American revolution and how this was a wonderful thing because it paved the way for the United States to become its own country. The American narrative, however, typically leaves out the detail that most revolutions are unsuccessful and do not lead to democratic societies. Even if a revolution is successful in ousting a group from power, the fall-out is often too much for the revolutionaries to take. Factions form, and at times the end result is another government much the same or worse than before in terms of freedom and democracy. The French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Confederate States of America, and the Arab Spring are all examples of revolutions that did not improve everyone's lives and made things much worse in some cases.

The word "socialist" makes me very uncomfortable when I hear it in this campaign cycle. This is because when I lived in Eastern Germany, I was corrected more than once when I said that the area used to be communist. The people who lived in the German Democratic Republic were convinced that their old system was authoritarian socialism. Now, the addition of the word "democratic" in from of "socialist" makes a world of difference. It's the difference between the government paying your neighbors to spy on you and being free to say what you wish. Here are Sanders's remarks on his view of democratic socialism.

Finally, the word "progressive" has been put through the wringer in the past few weeks. What is a progressive? Who deserves to use this word? Both Sanders and Clinton self-identify as progressives. If you google the word, the first thing that comes up is an insurance company. NPR, The Atlantic, and The New York Times have all tried to define the word recently. I always think of the Progressive movement in the US at the start of the 20th century:

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Title photo source: Unsplash

It's time for my monthly German wrap-up! The German side of the internet jumped right out of the holiday lull into new discussions about feminism, refugees, and sexism. Most of my links today have something to do with the New Year's Eve attacks in Cologne. Here's a bit of background from The Atlantic.

These horrible attacks have, as I said, sparked a huge national debate about refugee rights, feminism, and sexism in Germany. This opinion piece from tagesschau.de points out that sexism is not a new problem that the refugees brought with them. An English language article from Der Spiegel talks about the immediate fallout from the attacks. Additionally, earlier today the center-left SPD's local party office in Essen had to call off a planned protest against refugees. This shows how wide-spread and divisive the issue has become; the SPD's national and state parties have condemned the protest as going against the party's values.

In my old city of Erfurt, someone took out ads supporting the refugees and condemning the right wing ahead of an AfD demonstration.

In English: "Is Erfurt cool?" (In my opinion, the answer is yes!)

In less heavy news, I've rediscovered my love for German "Check" tv programs. Both ARD and ZDF have several programs that are a sort of consumer report for various objects - my favorite ones compare the supermarket chains. Here's one titled "Wie gut ist die deutsche Kueche?" ("How good is German food?") and another one called "Vorsicht, Verbraucherfalle!" ("Caution, Consumer Trap!") which examines the difference between the way food looks on the packaging and how it looks in reality.

Here's a helpful blog post telling ways to sound less foreign when speaking German. I felt quite clever since I already knew about "ischab" and "ne" even though I suppose those are two of the easier things to pick up on.

Besides that, I've been watching a lot of YouTube - I especially enjoyed Ella The Bee's planning videos this month, even if they're a bit more intense than the way I do things.

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Photo source: NYPL Digital Collections