free-range or event-horizon

Enforcement of a recent decision to liberate the hens, banning the keeping of battery fowl, has meant that German is experiencing an Easter egg shortage that has caused the Easter Bunny and his accomplices to bring in imports.   The surplus eggs, I'm sure, are being supplied by strike-breakers still confined to cages, though.  The chickens should have unionized a long time ago.  The shortage did not stop H, however, from masterfully decorating the place for Easter.

In other developments, CERN's Large Hadron Collider (the German term for particle accelerator is Teilchen Abschleuniger, which is hard to puzzle out) is back on line and has crossed a new energetic record.  Power unleashed by the collisions approach conditions experienced during the Big Bang, and interestingly, the facility is also the coldest place in the universe: the magnetic coils are kept within a fraction of absolute zero in order to run effectively.  Researchers are underway to new discoveries about the cause of universal gravitation and supersymmetries.  Though the majority of the scientific community downplay or dismiss fears as unfounded, a vocal minority warns that these experiments could destroy the earth by creating mini-blackholes or anti-matter.  Angela Merkel, the Kanzlerin, has an advanced degree in Physics from the University of Leipzig, and I am sure would voice her warnings if she thought otherwise.  If she and others underestimated the consequences, I doubt an official apology would suffice.

arguendo or Catchascatchcan

Angela Merkel has been meeting this week with Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul and today is being treated to a signt-seeing tour of Istanbul of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia after a summit that has not hurdled many disagreements and points of contention.  Merkel is our scout and cruise director, at least.  Resistant to the notion of assimilation, Turkey is pressing for inclusion of Turkish language primary and secondary school for the diaspora.  On the other side, Merkel has reaffirmed her shared hesitation about EU membership for the state, whose admissions process has been held up on more than one count, like refusal to recognize Cypriot sovereignty.

My current unit for my MBA studies focuses on international business law, and while it is just a smattering of knowledge--I understand what is meant by the various legal and accountable spectres of ltd and plc and even GmBH and KG--I feel I have learned a few things.  Not many matters of diplomacy and politico-economic unions, outside of trade and the aegis of common law, are touched on as such, per se, inter alia but I suspect that when Germany says that it and Turkey have a special relationship already and the two should work within that framework, it refers to an old Roman by the name of Status Quo.

eastertide or turkish delight

Spring recess for German school is this week leading up to Easter and many families are taking this break to embark on the year's first vacation.  It's relatively slow and quiet right now, due to this exodus--short of like the lemming health care professionals' escape en masse during the month of August.  Mind you don't get sick then. 

But we have had nebulous plans to have our next trip a bit later in the month, and for quite some time, though the agenda has not been fully articulated.  Who would want to take a break, unless compelled, when things are not so hectic and one can expect a lot of company?  I am excited and I fully expect the planning phase to come together very soon.  We have booked at least the essentials of passage to Istanbul, and have just been overwhelmed with history, ancient and modern, and have been studying to be a little better prepared for the next adventure.

universal coverage or dragnet

Being a civil servant and a conscientious bureaucrat, I feel I am a bit spoiled when it comes to entitlements like health care coverage.  I complain about the quality and speed of reimbursement, at least in a strictly theoretical sense since I fortuneately have never had occasion to make a claim against my policy and that's mostly just commiseration with those who have been at the mercy of insurers' schedules.  I realize, however, that most others would be happy and grateful to have a plan like this, subsidized by the US government--at least until last week.

I  hope this new reform act, which also has a clever proviso that's not been talked up much that better defines SallieMae as a quasi-government agency and culls predatory lenders from the student loan process, guarantees at least these baseline standards for everyone.  One special case, however, I do wonder about would apply to this corps of us diplomats, ambassadors of red tape--I get worn down by the fact that in this job, one is not allowed or encouraged many times to be smart or helpful but the exact opposite and most of the end-products of government work is of the same ilk.  Before (at least, last week) one was allowed to drop this relatively gracious insurance package if due to what's called a "life event."  If I became eligible for insurance under the German system--or chose to go route, I would be able to opt out.  Am I still allowed to do so, and what of those already under German Krankenversicherung?  Or does that now take a full and complete renunciation.

cute interlude or the rites of Spring

The online German cultural magazine The Local (auch auf englisch) has an adorable montage of zoo babies.  This website is great to browse through from time to time for human interest and off-beat articles that usually aren't part of mainstream translation.

there's a lake of stew and soda-pop too and you can paddle all around in a big canoe

On Sunday, Obama pushed through the much simonized the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, and I have hope that this is a good thing for America.  A lot of compromise and negotiation went into this and are still to come, surely there are more to come with Senate input.  I just hope that this does not go the way of other recent, historic overhauls like the Department of Homeland Security or Rumsfeld's mad-bomber approach to reforming the civil service system with NSPS (National Security Personnel System), which is now being rescinded or the half a dozen changes of nomenclature promulgated by the Ministry of Revisions.  One can read the full text from the Library of Congress here.
There has been a virtual landslide of commentary on both sides.  Here is a bit of point/counterpoint.  First Reuter's News Services issued this fact box with a timeline.

...WITHIN THE FIRST YEAR

-Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick.  Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted.
-Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
-A temporary reinsurance program is created to help companies maintain health coverage for early retirees between 55 and 64.
-Medicare drug beneficiaries who fall into the "doughbut hole" coverage gap will get a $250 rebate...
WHAT HAPPENS IN 2011
-Employers are required to disclose the value of health benefits of employees' tax returns...
There is a virtual landslide of commentary on both sides, and here is a little bit of point/counterpoint.

Investors' Digest Daily has issued the counter-argument:
-You are young and don't want health insurance?  You are starting up a small business and need to minize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego personal insurance?  Tough.  You have to pay $750 per annum for that "privilege."
-Health insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person's health status.
-Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them cost sharing, despite customer wishes.
-As a hospital administrator, you can only expand your facility if and only if it is located in a county whose population has grown 150% in the last five years proportionally to the population of the surrounding state.
-Employers can no longer offer flexible spending plans, even if that's what the worker wants.

H and I talked about these developments a little bit, and suspects that German who abandon its social healthcare system, if they could get away with it, no matter how equitable it is.  I just hope there is some convergent evolution on the part of America.

orange, lemon, cherry, lime

Coinciding with United Nations Water Day, astronomers report that water on the Moon, like water under the ocean, comes in more than one flavour.  There was also some spectacular magic-lantern images of glacial formations on Mars, ice walls hewn to pristine artic craters, courtesy of the Daily Mail.