Ten and Twenty Years Ago: The Confluence of Personal and Public History

Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall was breached. Günter Schabowski, an East German Politburo member, announced that East Germans were free to travel. Now an old man, Schabowski claimed on the BBC this morning that he didn’t make a basic mistake, that he just jumped the gun by a few hours, but the record [...]

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The Perfect Modularity of East German Housing

The German Democratic Republic built a lot of apartments from prefab material in an effort to alleviate their perennial housing shortage. They had a great name for it, Plattenbauweise, which is only a long word when you consider the technique is called “Large Panel System building” in English. Basically, the builders took a bunch of [...]

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As the Tanks Rolled into Poland, 70 Years Ago Today

If you haven’t been hiding under a rock, you may have heard that today marked the 70th anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Poland, which touched off World War II.
I’m not going to pretend that history neatly repeats itself, because it just doesn’t. Human evil – and sometimes, human goodness – is more protean than that. [...]

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How the Current “Health System” Is Anti-Entrepreneurial

At Alas, Angry Black Woman describes a predicament that strikes many creative people sooner or later:
For most of my adult life, I’ve had to live without health insurance. Because I was a freelancer for many years, or because I did not have a fixed residence for a while, or because my skills and career interests [...]

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To All the Folks Equating Obama and Hitler

Stop scrambling German history.
It was Bismarck, not Hitler, who introduced universal health care in Germany. Bismarck established public, non-profit insurance agencies funded by worker and employer contributions. He didn’t do it because he was a bleeding-heart liberal; his intent was to co-opt an issue that drew support to socialism.
Please get your mustaches straight.

Photo from the [...]

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In Which I Indulge the Jackboot Analogy

So I realize most couples don’t sit around in the evening discussing the tactics of the SA. But that’s what my husband and I were doing this evening, once the kids went to bed. Both of us think there are some parallels between Germany in the early 1930s and the explosions of public hate that [...]

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I Just Missed My Ride to Outer Space

Ha. Some of you are saying, “But Sungold, you’re already way out there, orbiting some dark star.”
This video clip freaked me out because I was at the top of the Berlin TV tower – that apogee of East German Communist design and engineering – just a few weeks ago. My kids, my mate, and I [...]

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Squirrely about Chocolate

I haven’t seen our bunnies since I returned from Germany. They’re probably pouting about the cage we put over my chard. So I got all excited when I heard a rustling sound while my husband and I were sitting on the front porch.
It wasn’t a bunny. It was a squirrel, having a big fight with [...]

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The TSA Is Global

Not literally – but the spirit of the TSA is flourishing abroad, just as paranoid as here but without the friendly smile you sometimes get from TSA employees.
Last month I wrote about how airport security in Brussels searched inside the waistband of my older son’s pants. I realize they’ve got to be thorough, but my [...]

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Labor Pain from the Lighter Side

Following up on yesterday’s post on the romanticization of labor pain: The other evening, my sons were watching clips on YouTube, and suddenly I heard the sort of moans that made me wonder if they’d stumbled onto YouPorn instead. But no. They’d found a “Maulwurf” video illustrating how birth works. “Der kleine Maulwurf” – or [...]

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Man-Midwifery and the Romanticization of Labor Pain

A few days ago, a friend of mine who’s expecting her first baby emailed me, wondering if she should plan for a “natural” birth or give in to the “temptation” of an epidural. I don’t know what she’ll decide (and honestly, both are reasonable choices, in my view), but I pointed out that she was [...]

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What Intersectionality Is and Isn’t

Hint: One thing intersectionality is not? Silly.**
Here’s what intersectionality is good for. It reminds us that the same person can be both an oppressed person and an oppressor, depending on how you turn the prism. I might be oppressed as a woman, but if I refuse to pay my housecleaner a decent wage? I’m an [...]

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Some Kind of Computer

Yesterday, while we adults tried to sort out some of the old junk still hanging around the Berlin apartment, the kids intercepted this gem and saved it from the dumpster.

It’s a “Reiseschreibmachine” – a portable manual typewriter that I bought in 1991 when I first arrived in Germany and was waiting for the first real [...]

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How Shall We Poll the Children?

Okay, okay, here’s one more post that uses Sarah Palin’s recent noise as a jumping-off point, but isn’t really about her, in the end.
I’ve already noted that in her resignation speech, she claimed to have polled her five kids on whether she should quit. Given that Trig’s still a babe and Track’s still deployed to [...]

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Don’t Eat the Marshmallow

A while back, a bunch of Stanford researchers ran an experiment on some four-year-olds at the university’s childcare center. They put a marshmallow in front of each kid with instructions to not eat it while the experimenter left for 15 minutes. The kids were told they’d get two marshmallows if they didn’t eat the first [...]

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The Cloud of Doom

We’ve been having some uproarious thunderstorms in Berlin. This was the view off our balcony just before one of them broke at dusk two days ago. Yesterday, the whole family got caught out on bikes during a downpour that featured both thunder and sunshine – all at once.
My mood’s not actually one of impending doom. [...]

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Sparkly Caturday

One of Berlin’s less charming features is the prevalence of dog poop on the sidewalks. The poop density actually seems to have decreased since last summer, but the kids still need to get used to watching their step. For the Tiger, this is an all-too-welcome opportunity for poop talk. We’re trying not to encourage it. [...]

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I’d Like to Get Some Sleep before I Travel

Tomorrow (well, technically today) I’m headed to Berlin with my kids and husband for our annual German sojourn. Posting will be flaky for a few days while we endure the flight and the intense jet lag that only young children can inflict on their loved ones. (Yes, I will drug them. No, it won’t be [...]

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Nettled by Needles: My Foray into Acupuncture

In hopes of some relief from the symptoms that still bother me (mostly a way-ramped-up autonomic nervous system and serious fatigue), today I went to the first of several appointments with an osteopath who also does acupuncture. I’d had acupuncture once before – during my first pregnancy while I was still in Germany, and it [...]

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Parenting in the Shadows of Atrocity

Pictures from a few hours ago:
We’re in the mountains. The sky is preternaturally blue. Maybe I’m in Colorado.
An airplane approaches, too low. It breaks into two pieces. There’s no fire, smoke, or explosion. The fuselage just snaps in two, breaking right behind the wings. It goes down instantly, silently.
In the dream, everyone knows it’s September [...]

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