Poison soaks into your brain
Oblivious to truths
Indifferent to reality
Spewing insecurities
Overcoming your integrity
Needing your dependence to
Keep you from having faith in anyone or anything
It bleeds through your veins
Laughing as it oozes into your soul
Loving that you hate it
Savoring your agony
They said and said they were gonna do it and they did: Oracle replaced a working and workable support page with a gawd-damned spawn of Satan made out of Flash pile of excrement.
It's okay Oracle. I like
- Not being able to scroll with my mouse wheel.
- A login dialog a whole click away from your default landing page.
- Not being able to store my password in my browser.
Because there is nothing like having to deal with a shit-load of minor irritation when you're dealing with critical support issues.
Americans, and Canadians, have had this now antiquated assumption of honesty in dealing with the government. Foolish, foolish indeed, and nearly over.
- Location:the cubical
- Mood:
creative
| Day Nine 16,878 written (33.76%) |
  |
| ^ halfway mark |
 |
| 15,003 required (30.00%) |
I blame the Plot Bunnies.
- 00:12 Tired. Sore. Tiredandsore. Oh well! More skating tomorrow!
P.S. I <3 Frankie # - 14:45 RT @PhoenixZoo The Dragons R coming! bit.ly/4bz15T Grand Opening 11/11 Free w/ admission #
- 16:47 Working out with Jz0 in a few, then skating with Erin tonight. I'm gonna be soretiredsore tomorrow! #
- 23:44 Skating hurts! No wonder the Derby girls all have nice butts. LOL #
So what? It's not about me, or you, or any one individual.
It is about something bigger than yourself.
Happy Birthday, Marines.
Brian Dunbar
Lance Corporal of Marines
1985-1993
Ich war mal ein austausch schuler auf Deutschland.
I was an exchange student in Germany. I went with a private organization, and made a direct exchange with a German family... their kid came and lived with my family for a year, while I went to Germany and lived with his family. This did not develop into a friendship between either of us and the other's families... we were simply too different, had values that were too far apart.
That's not really what I wanted to write about, though. I wanted to write about the fact that today is the twentieth anniversary of the reunification of Germany.
When I went to Germany in 1986, there were two Germanys, the Federal Republic of Germany (West) and the Democratic Republic of Germany (East). I went to a town named Göttingen, which was only a few kilometers west of the border. My host family took me, at one point, to an overlook, where I could look down on the chain-link fence topped with razor wire.
It was dangerous to have a united Germany. After all, a united Germany had started two world wars in thirty years. I had my doubts about the causal relationship between a united Germany and world wars, but that was the official line... there would not be a united Germany in our lifetimes, because it would be dangerous.
I wanted to go to East Germany. I got on a train bound for Berlin, but the border guards looked at my passport and turned me back. They said I didn't look enough like my passport picture. I imagine that was just an excuse, but who knows what the real reason was.
At the end of the year, I reluctantly left Germany. If I could have figured out a way to stay, I might well have. I was mostly happy in Göttingen. I had friends, I liked the atmosphere of the city... the only thing in the whole town I didn't like, actually, was my host family.
But I didn't have the resources to stay, so I came home to Arizona, and a while later, joined the Navy. Which is where I was in November 1989. I don't remember President Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech, but I do remember feeling very relaxed about being in the Navy, feeling that the likelyhood of the war we'd been dreading throughout my childhood was now very low. (I was surprised, a year later, to find myself in a completely different war... but that's another story).
I remember watching on the television on the mess deck of USS Papago (ATF-160) as the wall began to topple. I was surprised and overwhelmed that the world could be so reasonable for a change.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to return to Germany since the wall came down. I'd like to. I'd like to travel in the places that used to be East Germany, to look at the architecture, to see what it's like.
Congratulations to my German friends, for being part of a country that [i]isn't[/i] a dangerous factor in world politics. Congratulations for being part of a reasonable world. And most of all... congratulations on this twentieth anniversary of the wall falling.
Men are easy: sex with a guy is like blowing up a balloon until it explodes. Sex with a woman is like opening a safe, in the dark, wearing gloves, and the combination changes every day. Oh ... and sometimes even the owner doesn't know the combination.
But holy shit, in what UNIVERSE DID YOU FUCKING THINK THAT WOULD WORK?!Remind me to stay out that chick's line of fire.
Seriously, where were you when God was handing out brains? And why, why, why is it starting to look like that your ancestors went out for tacos instead of waiting for their Apple from the Tree of Knowledge? It's gotta be like that because there is no way this much stupid could be distilled down to three successive generations, which makes me boggle. How in the name of Darwin did natural selection not get you?
I mean it. Anyone with two neurons floating in the center of a sac of saline would have cottoned on at light speed how that 'plan' was going to go very, very, very, epically fail. And mutate into so much wrongness, I'm surprised that the Gods haven't struck it down as an abomination of reality.
Up and to the office, where did a good deale of business, and then at noon to the Exchange and to my little goldsmith's, whose wife is very pretty and modest, that ever I saw any. Upon the 'Change, where I seldom have of late been, I find all people mightily at a losse what to expect, but confusion and fears in every man's head and heart. Whether war or peace, all fear the event will be bad. Thence home and with my brother to dinner, my wife being dressing herself against night; after dinner I to my closett all the afternoon, till the porter brought my vest back from the taylor's, and then to dress myself very fine, about 4 or 5 o'clock, and by that time comes Mr. Batelier and Mercer, and away by coach to Mrs. Pierces, by appointment, where we find good company: a fair lady, my Lady Prettyman, Mrs. Corbet, Knipp; and for men, Captain Downing, Mr. Lloyd, Sir W. Coventry's clerk, and one Mr. Tripp, who dances well. After some trifling discourse, we to dancing, and very good sport, and mightily pleased I was with the company. After our first bout of dancing, Knipp and I to sing, and Mercer and Captain Downing (who loves and understands musique) would by all means have my song of "Beauty, retire." which Knipp had spread abroad; and he extols it above any thing he ever heard, and, without flattery, I know it is good in its kind. This being done and going to dance again, comes news that White Hall was on fire; and presently more particulars, that the Horse-guard was on fire;1 and so we run up to the garret, and find it so; a horrid great fire; and by and by we saw and heard part of it blown up with powder. The ladies begun presently to be afeard: one fell into fits. The whole town in an alarme. Drums beat and trumpets, and the guards every where spread, running up and down in the street. And I begun to have mighty apprehensions how things might be at home, and so was in mighty pain to get home, and that that encreased all is that we are in expectation, from common fame, this night, or to-morrow, to have a massacre, by the having so many fires one after another, as that in the City, and at same time begun in Westminster, by the Palace, but put out; and since in Southwarke, to the burning down some houses; and now this do make all people conclude there is something extraordinary in it; but nobody knows what. By and by comes news that the fire has slackened; so then we were a little cheered up again, and to supper, and pretty merry. But, above all, there comes in the dumb boy that I knew in Oliver's time, who is mightily acquainted here, and with Downing; and he made strange signs of the fire, and how the King was abroad, and many things they understood, but I could not, which I wondering at, and discoursing with Downing about it, "Why," says he, "it is only a little use, and you will understand him, and make him understand you with as much ease as may be." So I prayed him to tell him that I was afeard that my coach would be gone, and that he should go down and steal one of the seats out of the coach and keep it, and that would make the coachman to stay. He did this, so that the dumb boy did go down, and, like a cunning rogue, went into the coach, pretending to sleep; and, by and by, fell to his work, but finds the seats nailed to the coach. So he did all he could, but could not do it; however, stayed there, and stayed the coach till the coachman's patience was quite spent, and beat the dumb boy by force, and so went away. So the dumb boy come up and told him all the story, which they below did see all that passed, and knew it to be true. After supper, another dance or two, and then newes that the fire is as great as ever, which put us all to our wit's-end; and I mightily [anxious] to go home, but the coach being gone, and it being about ten at night, and rainy dirty weather, I knew not what to do; but to walk out with Mr. Batelier, myself resolving to go home on foot, and leave the women there. And so did; but at the Savoy got a coach, and come back and took up the women; and so, having, by people come from the fire, understood that the fire was overcome, and all well, we merrily parted, and home. Stopped by several guards and constables quite through the town, round the wall, as we went, all being in armes. We got well home ... Being come home, we to cards, till two in the morning, and drinking lamb's-wool. So to bed.
- "Nov. 9th. Between seven and eight at night, there happened a fire in the Horse Guard House, in the Tilt Yard, over against Whitehall, which at first arising, it is supposed, from some snuff of a candle falling amongst the straw, broke out with so sudden a flame, that at once it seized the north-west part of that building; but being so close under His Majesty's own eye, it was, by the timely help His Majesty and His Royal Highness caused to be applied, immediately stopped, and by ten o'clock wholly mastered, with the loss only of that part of the building it had at first seized." -- The London Gazette, No. 103. -- B. ↩
When the Wall began to fall, I was six years of age, and I never realised what was going on until things were already over.
I remember that I knew what the GDR was while it still existed, because I remember expressing the (as I then thought, ingenious) opinion that the "D" was obviously for "dictatorial" rather than "democratic" (I was a weird child); but I do no longer know just how I learned about the existence or nature of the GDR. Looking back, I assume that it popped up in discussions and in the news a lot, and thus I may have picked up on a thing or two; but it was all very abstract. My parents did not believe in teaching their kids things about politics at that tender age, so all I knew was either overheard, conjectured, or told to me by friends. It must have been a big muddle.
I remember that I thought that Berlin was right at the border, because I could not imagine that a whole city should, like an island, be lodged in the middle of a different country - and parted in two. In my logic, Berlin must be at the border, half-way across.
I remember that my elementary school teacher told us, a few months into my first school term ever, how her daughter had been to Berlin, and how people had crossed the border "to the East" unchecked. I think she also mentioned cold weather and sleet, but the memory is fuzzy. It did not seem important to me at the time. Piecing things together, I must assume that this was in early mid-November.
I remember that the daughter was called Astrid.
I remember that we had an activity week in school, in early October, when I was in second grade, almost a year later. During that week, there were no classes; instead everybody got to choose a project in which to participate for that week. I was in an "art" project group, because the topic had sounded interesting, but on the whole it was disappointing; instead of drawing and painting normally, which I liked to do, we had to experiment with different infused plants (an experiment the teacher leading the project had never tried before, hurrah) and paint with finger paints and other things I didn't enjoy at the time. I remember that clearly enough.
I do not remember how exactly it happened, but I remember that the teachers were all entirely useless one day - close to hysterics, and randomly saying things like "The Wall is gone, it really is gone".
I did not know what wall they were talking of. The only vaguely remarkable wall in my village was the wall at the back end of the school grounds, which we were not allowed to climb and accordingly climbed all the time.
I do remember that my mother ceremonially and with great satisfaction took our family atlas and crossed out the border between the Federal Republic and the Democratic Republic. This was something we had to do frequently in our school atlases, later on, because our schools rarely could afford new books, so our books were usually 5 - 10 years old, and often obsolete.
I remember being asked, when I went to school in Canada, what I remembered about the Unification; and I had to give the unsatisfying account I gave above, with the apology that, having only been six to seven at the time and, on the whole, a very unpolitical child, things had mostly passed me by. Being born and raised in Western Germany, things hadn't change for me anyway. Only years later did I actually get to "the East": for a family reunion in Eisenach, and for a short fall vacation to Leipzig (where my grandfather on my mother's side had originally come from, but when he returned from war captivity he had wisely made for relatives in Swabia) and Weimar.
There were two other exchange students from Germany at the time - Max from Baden-Baden and Inken from Hamburg - and both remembered as little as I, so I felt a little less badly about it.
The girl who had asked us had asked because she was going to do a presentation on the Berlin Wall, and she had made a little cardboard model of the Wall, and asked us to decorate the "Western" side with authentic German graffiti, which, during lunch break, we did.
I remember, a few years ago, a visit from Jörg's American cousin Kurt and his boyfriend Richie. I do not remember how we came to talk about the fall of the Wall, but it turned out that (unlike Jörg or I) Richie had been in Berlin in late 1990, and of course he'd gone to take a look at the Wall. Enterprising young Germans had put up stalls, selling either (relatively expensive) chunks of Wall or renting out (relatively expensive) chisels and hammers to people who wanted to have their own go. Richie of course rented chisel and hammer and enthusiastically chopped away at the wall..... and about an hour later brought the chisel and hammer back. And bought a chunk of Wall.
Almost everything I know about the fall of the Wall is pieced together in hindsight, or acquired via collective memory. Which is not surprising, I suppose - I was, after all, only six years old - but it's still a pity.
My mother's middle brother is professor of pharmacy at the University of Jena, which is in the East. We rarely see him and his family, except once or twice a year. His wife likes to point out that the way from East to West is no shorter than the way from West to East, because it's almost always them who have to drive here, rarely us who drive there. Somehow my family still seems to feel that it's more natural for Easterners to want to come West than the other way round.
These days the Unification is mostly seen - at best - as a mixed blessing. It is still expensive, see, and idealism always dwindles when it takes its toll on peoples' purses. Unification Day - in celebration of October 3rd, 1990, when the process begun on November 9th, 1989, came to full bloom - is officially our national holiday; but it is not generally celebrated much (except by politicians or, this year, because of the anniversary). Germany are no longer comfortable with anything that even vaguely looks like patriotism, unless it pertains to football.
Sometimes physical walls are easier to tear down, after all, than the walls in the heads of people.
But the Unification still was a proper real-world miracle, in my own lifetime, and twenty years ago was when it began for good, when the first two letters of the big, fundamental "impossible" suddenly started to flicker.
And I wish I remembered more about it. I wish I could say that I danced in the streets, burned off fireworks, lit a candle, cheered and clapped, anything. I wish that I could at least remember heated and hopeful discussions around the kitchen table, or requests to pray for a peaceful solution, or anything of the sort. But I don't. Instead, 20 years ago, the most important thing for me was (likely) a) the impending St Martin's wassailing and bonfire, and b) my brother's birthday.
And now, 20 years later, I still cannot quite grasp it. But even though I feel that I am not properly a part of it, I can't help being just the tiniest bit proud. Generally, by association, just because it was Good and it happened in my lifetime and it changed, in its way, the country and the world.
And that's that.
- Mood:
thoughtful
Page Summary
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
takaal : Okay, it's a gimmick, but I like it. [+0] - takaal : And on a lighter note... [+0]
- bdunbar : You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell! [+0]
- bdunbar : Comment of the day [+0]
- snotblossom : Varr thought this was pretty funny [+0]
- raventhourne : Lookie! I biked.. [+0]
- takaal : Whee! [+0]
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
pearlswine :: jfboyd : 11.10.09 [+4] - takaal : So now, there's some sort of tricky espionage plot happening. [+0]
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif)
dictionary_wotd : soporific: Dictionary.com Word of the Day [+0] - dictionary_wotd : Presented By: [+0]
- vendredi13 : (no subject) [+0]
- apod : NGC 2623: Galaxy Merger from Hubble [+2]
- sinfest_mod :: duke_garland : Staring Contest: Here's Looking At You, Kid [+2]
- bdunbar : Happy 234th [+0]
- cowboy_r : Cowboy R und den Wand [+2]
- bdunbar : Sex [+1]
- bdunbar : All Purpose Rant [+3]
- pepysdiary : Friday 9 November 1666 [+0]
- oloriel : Mereth Aderthad [+0]