Day trip to Amberg

Amberg is a small city about 30 minutes from where I live. I've driven through many times and eaten at a couple of its restaurants, but I'd never really explored the altstadt -- the old city -- which is a walled area in the middle of town.

One photo shows a part of wall that goes around the city and the moat that goes part of the way. Another photo is a view looking down the river at the Catholic church, St. Martin's, that's in the center of the altstadt. The other building is the rathaus, town hall, in the altstadt's town square.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Here are some photos from my recent day trip to Rothenburg (pron. "ROTE-n-burg) with a friend. This old walled city is quite quaint and scenic and mobbed by tourists most of the year. Because it's January, we only saw a few American and Japanese tourists and were able to enjoy the day completely.

Where are we really?

I watched the news last week (or was it the week before?) with rapt attention to the play Hillary got for her "outburst of emotion."

"Oh," exclaimed one male reporter. "This is definitely going to affect her run for the presidency. It could be very damaging. I don't think there's any way she can win now, after THIS."

Of course, I'm reciting that from memory. He may not have said exactly that. But he did indicate that she just might not make it now that she's shown some emotion. God forbid anyone should act the least bit human, let the facade down for a minute, especially a woman.

Then there was the woman who asked Hillary the question that brought on the emotions. After that show of humanism, she didn't vote for Hillary. She said something like, "I really appreciated that she showed some emotion. But in the end. . . she recovered too soon, and I just didn't like it."

God forbid she should actually put her professional face back on. She's damned if she does. . . Damned if she doesn't.

On a related note, the other night I was talking to my very astute friend John from West Virginia. He's pretty soft-spoken, and people probably underestimate him at times. But once in a while he says something so on-the-point that he stops me in my tracks. He was asking me about how people over here in Europe felt about the assassination of Pakistani Premier Bhutto. I knew about it, to be sure. I'd watched coverage of it on CNN International day after day after day.

John said he was troubled by the lack of media attention to this in the US. He used to be a reporter himself, so he tends to tune into those things. He felt like the media were downplaying the importance of the murder of this strong woman and leader who was working to solve some of the problems in that part of the world, some of which are our problems, too.

John said, "Why aren't more women protesting and speaking out? Why are women just sitting there and watching this poor coverage of the assassination? And why aren't they saying something about the comments made about Hillary? [We'd spoken about that, too.]. . . Why are you all just LYING THERE?"

I made a lot of excuses, but the truth is that I don't know. Where are the women who used to speak out about such things? Are they now the "older generation" and tired and waiting for US to do something? And the younger women. . . if the ones I taught in classes are any indication, because they never lived through equal rights struggles, frankly. . . they didn't think any issues currently existed. "Things are just fine," was their attitude.

And what about us? We followed those strong women and let them do the work. Is it our turn now?

New year's challenge to be more green

I recently found in the mail an envelope for sending in used cell phones to be recycled. I wondered where I put my old cell phone from the US, figured it's somewhere in my current apartment, and promplty forgot all about it.

In a lengthy article in today's New York Times magazine, Jon Mooallem describes the cell phone recycling business and the growing abundance of e-waste, that is, household electronics that are being thrown out by Americans by the ton each year.

According to the Mooallem:

Americans threw out just shy of three million tons of household electronics in 2006. This so-called e-waste is the fastest-growing part of the municipal waste stream and, depending on your outlook, either an enormous problem or a bonanza. E-waste generally contains substances that, though safely sequestered during each product’s use, can become hazardous if not handled properly when disposed. Those products also hold bits of precious metals like silver, copper, platinum and gold.

The article goes on for six pages, and I confess to only reading three and skimming three. But I took from the article these facts:

- Recycled phones are making their way to developing countries, giving people affordable communications (or at least more affordable than if they had to buy new phones).

- The physical recycling process occurs in many countries, and in some, the hazardous wastes are not being handled properly. Furthermore, what's not recyclable ends up in dumps in countries that don't have the infrastructure to handle such waste. The EU now requires companies to become more "green" in their production of cell phones to avoid some of these end problems. One such company that does it well is Umicore.

- It's better to recycle your cell phone than not. And there are companies that will pay the postage. It's estimated that Americans now have more than half a billion "old" cell phones sitting in drawers because we couldn't bring ourselves to throw them away but didn't know what else to do with them!

Take from this what you will. If you're interested in recycling your cell phone, check out Collective Good and GreenPhone.com, both of which were started by the same man. As soon as I figure out in which drawer I placed that old phone, I'm going to send it in.

* graphic courtesy of Collective Good

Happy new year. . .

It is 2008, after all.

I just received snail mail from friend Sarah in Texas. We've known each other since we were five or so.

Our 30-year high school reunion is coming up this summer, so that's been hanging in the shadows of recent communications with old friends from that era.

Sarah commented in the letter, "I think we never would have guessed thirty years ago what we would be doing now." She's absolutely right. I didn't even know what I *wanted* to do, except perhaps live overseas. And have an interesting life. (And I still don't.)

After growing up in small-town New Mexico nine miles from the Texas border, all I ever wanted was to have the opportunity to go to interesting places, meet interesting people, do interesting things. What defined "interesting"? Anything that wasn't like home.

That dusty Texas panhandle town was boring to me. Without culture, I thought. Now I know that every place on earth has culture. It's just that that West Texas culture was so familiar to me that it was boring. I couldn't see that this area of the country was unique, just as all are.

All these years later, as I roam around the Bavarian countryside taking in the centuries-old churches and admiring the ruins of glorious and not-so-glorious castles, I do find myself yearning a bit for the open roads, adobe, and vistas of my youth. And I appreciate now the co-mingling (and not) of the Anglo, cowboy, Mexican and Indian cultures that I took for granted then. If I'm to be honest, the familiar is at times comforting, too.

And you see, it's different from what I have now. So it's kind of interesting.

Wouldn't Madame Huey be proud?

I finally got the internet at home. I've been slightly reluctant to become completely connected again. I guess it wasn't "slight" since it took me six months to get here. But I'm here.

I can't go back and catch up on everything. But I'll tell you bits and pieces about the last few months. To start, I visited Ronda (Folk Alliance friend who lives in Austin) for a fun weekend in Paris. Here's an early December photo of me at L'Orangerie in Paris. I'm standing in front of one of Monet's "Water Lilies."

Apparently the museum's been closed for several years for renovation. I think I liked it better as it was 20 years ago. . . rather dark with a keen focus on these paintings in room after room. They used to say that you felt like you were really walking among the water lilies when you went through the Orangerie, and I agree.

This time around, I had talked up the paintings to friends Ronda, Emilie and Emilie, at least two of whom hadn't been there before. Once we got there, my sense was that they were thinking, "What's the big deal?" The rooms were so brightly lit that it felt obscene, obnoxious, or some other appropriate "O" word.

The longer we stayed, the more enchanted we became with those "Water Lilies." The magic was still there after all. Wouldn't Madame Huey be proud? (She was my h.s. French teacher who taught us about the Impressionists.) Mais oui.