Cobbles are for Suckers

If there is one word for biking around Munich, it is "civilized." This works on a couple levels. First, there's no antagonism between bikes and cars - they actually give you the right of way and pay attention - making it a lot safer (hardly anyone wears a helmet). Which means, second, that there's no dumb bike culture. Which means, third, you can ride grandad bikes without feeling like a middle-aged guy whose mom packs his lunch.

These are the only bikes you can actually ride while wearing a suit and there aren't many things to make you feel more civilized than biking in a suit. Until you reach the cobble stones. They are uncivilized. They are dumb. It was fine when they were the only sensible alternative to mud and dung but they are officially well past their sell-by date. Hours after a long ride today and my ass still hurts.

There's a batch of urban planners that advocate for reviving cobble stones in the States, claiming they do everything from reduce pedestrian injuries (slower car speeds) to emanate somethingorother that will magically undo all the real and imagined damages the car has wreaked on American community. These people are charlatans.

Michael Jackson, Iran, and Anticipation

I know it's a big deal that Michael Jackson died, and it's a big deal in Germany too (they love him here), and that Iran is holding the world on edge, but I only care about one thing right now.

Counting the Days

Sunday is almsot here . . .

Public Service Announcement

1. Americans do not watch class action suits like they are the Roman games.
2. That woman burned by the McDonald's coffee? She was disfigured for life in some very sad, personal ways, and this had happened to more than McD's customer before. The jury smacked McDonald's because McDonald's was negligent and callous and disregarded basic standards of human decency.
3. We have a more or less non-existent social welfare system. When we get hurt and lose our jobs, we don't still get to take our two week national naptime (I'm looking at you, Holland).
4. Some of us have actually heard of your country and do know where to find it on the map.
5. You need immigrants, you idiots. Shut up and let them make money.
6. Seriously, guy - I know more about your country than you know about mine. Cut me some slack. I really like it here. I happily disfigure your language all the time. I even made a joke in German today. That's the second this week. Yes, dammit - I play soccer all the time . . . and, yes, I understand offsides.

German Legal Term of the Day

"Quotenkonsolidierungsverfahren" = pro rata consolidation procedure.

This is a very specific phrase/word having to do with consolidation of interests in banking. (Here's an old report discussing different views on the subject . . . if you're really that interested, the mention of pro-rata is at the very end.) In some ways, like with some of the other words I've shared, it's no different than shoving an entire English phrase into a single word. But in other ways, it sums up the German approach in one ten-syllable shot.

Despite the fact that German attorneys have all these long words, they use American nicknames for corporate take-overs. And they like them because they make it sound cool; poison pill, saturday night special, white night, black night, green mail, squeeze-out, etc. They make long words, we try and sound like gangsters.

The European Disunion

I haven't written about the recent EU elections yet (which wrapped up on Sunday after four days of voting) because, frankly, nobody was talking about it. There were articles in the papers but they were stuffed by news of the iminent (and now effective) insolvency of Anachron, the Opel deal, and the Air France search. Last week, one of the Frankfurt papers ran a double-spread about the European Parliament but it's tone was almost like a travelogue, a peek into a far-off alien world.

The Hearings That Weren't

If you haven't heard any of This American Life's coverage of the financial crisis, check it out. Teaming up with the folks from Planet Money, TAL does a great job. Their most recent broadcast deals with the government regulators and the credit rating companies. Both function - or are supposed to function - as gatekeepers. During the last decade or so, they did anything but.

If the latest episode doesn't clarify why some level of legal literacy is important in a democracy, I don't know what will. For years, under Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses, American kept saying they wanted less regulation. Based on their anger these days, it doesn't seem like they knew what they were asking for. But they got it, in spades.