Farewell

Roger Ebert (6/18/42 - 4/4/13), certainly America's most prolific film critic, had a big influence on me over the years.  Several of his books line my shelves.  I guess I'm going to have to figure out what I think about new films on my own.  The world is a colder place without him.

Ebert in 1970

In his Old Office

Long Winter

To the Thawing Wind

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!

 Bring the singer, bring the nester;

 Give the buried flower a dream;

 Make the settled snow-bank steam;

 Find the brown beneath the white;

 But whate'er you do to-night,

 Bathe my window, make it flow,

 Melt it as the ice will go;

 Melt the glass and leave the sticks

 Like a hermit's crucifix;

 Burst into my narrow stall;

 Swing the picture on the wall;

 Run the rattling pages o'er;

 Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.

-- Robert Frost

Not What You'd Expect

A Boucherie Chevaline in the 15th Arondissement

As news of the discovery of horse meat in numerous prêt-à-manger products spreads around the world, I find myself, seasoned francophile that I am, tempted to shrug my shoulders.  I guess it is a scandal that products have been mislabeled.  I''m hoping that the horse meat mixed into the products was not contaminated.  But I ate a fair bit of horsemeat during my time in Paris, often because it was offered among the cheapest menus you could find, so I don't react strongly to the idea of eating it.  While most Americans and Germans whom I know reject offhand the consumption of horse meat, the French -- gotta love it -- have actually started consuming more horse meat since the scandal broke.  Why pay more for beef products when they might just contain horse meat when you can have the real thing.  C'est dingue!  I can't actually claim to crave horse meat, but I'd eat it in a pinch -- or for nostalgia.  Meanwhile, the debate in Germany centers around whether to destroy the falsely-labeled products, to give them to the poor, or to let German politicians eat them.

Frankfurt Grey

I'm always joking that there is a special shade of grey called Frankfurt Grey because of the long, dreary winters and frequent cloudy skies.  I also joke that, in a bad year, the sun disappears behind clouds at the beginning of September and rarely emerges until April.  Well, I'm not far from the truth this winter.  Just yesterday I was complaining to Frau Bloggerboy about how little sunshine we have had lately.  This morning, the local paper reported that this winter is on its way to becoming the dreariest winter in the past 42 years.  There have been less than 100 hours of sunshine in Germany since December 1.  Even though the winters are relatively mild here, they sure can be depressing.

1970 war mit durchschnittlich 104 Stunden der bisherige Tiefstwert erreicht - wird er unterschritten, ist der Winter 2012/13 der trübste seit Beginn der flächendeckenden Aufzeichnungen im Jahr 1951. Normal seien 160 Stunden Sonnenschein in den drei Monaten des meteorologischen Winters, sagte DWD-Sprecher Gerhard Lux.

Shades of Grey -- Winter in Frankfurt, a color photograph

Advantages of Working at Home

1.  Your shoes last forever.

Scenes from Tyrol

Our Times

I don't know whether others have noticed the big shift that is going on in the world right now.  I've been waiting for this to happen for years, more with dread than anticipation.  Our generation -- at least those of us who made a decision to try to keep up with technological change -- has experienced an incredible revolution since the Seventies.  From vacuum tubes to microchips, from typewriters to word processors, and then to PC's.  Finally, the Internet developed.  I can still remember my first online ventures here in Germany with BTX (Bildschirmtext), a cousin of France's Minitel.   Those were frustrating times as well: slow connections, limited access to websites, frequent crashes and blue screens.  I will never forget the lost work day in 1997 that I spent with my Microsoft-certified computer guy, fortunately a friend who didn't charge me for his time, trying to install a mouse on my new computer.  A mouse!  Companies were rushing to get their hardware and software out on the market to avoid being crushed by the competition.  Staring in the mid-Nineties, however, the wonderful possibilities of the Internet opened up.  What an incredible empowerment of the individual.  From my desktop perch, I could access information from around the world, chat with strangers who shared my interests, bridge continents in real time -- and, getting to the topic of this post, for the most part the information was free.  All you had to do was pay the monthly telecom fees.  At first, the telecom fees were hefty, but soon flat rates took over.  We had entered the land of milk and honey.    

For me, 2013 marks the year that a critical mass of information providers has begun trying to charge for access to their content.  They are still taking baby steps.  With just a bit of sophistication, a reader can delete the meter cookies, if one is so inclined.  The business model of free access paid for by advertizing clicks has not worked for businesses that employ people to provide content.  I'm already starting to calculate how much I am willing to pay each year to perform my morning surf.  My routine morning surf established itself after over a decade of refinement (and God knows how many lost days following one link to another to another until I became addicted).  I need to visit about  15 to 20 sites a day to feel like I am on top of things.  Many of those sites would like to charge me between $ 35 and $ 200 a year to access content.  That is not going to happen.  I am willing to consider $ 10 to $ 20 a site for annual access.  I doubt that is going to suffice, but let's wait and see.  I will look at alternative free sites before agreeing to pay significant amounts for front-line journalism that often parrots other sources.  And, of course, there is Wikipedia.  Just so you don't think I'm a cheapskate, I donated about $ 25 to Wikipedia last year.

My business idea for the day is to set up an online publisher's clearinghouse to offer discount packaged subscriptions to multiple sites.  E.g., for $ 100 a year you can access five to ten of your favorite sites.  Someone will have to do a lot of legwork to get content providers to agree to bundle their product, but I bet it would make economic sense if the clearinghouse can help increase the subscription base.  Note to anyone who makes a fortune off this idea:  send me an e-mail for bank wiring instructions for my commission.  My children will be grateful.

Biodynamic Agriculture

On my Saturday stroll back home from town, I stopped in at a new organic supermarket that opened right in the middle of the banking district.  As there are not many grocery stores in our neighborhood, I wanted to check out the selection.  The bread selection looked interesting, and I decided to try an organic milk that was not available in other stores and an organic yoghurt from "Andechs".  For numerous reasons, we are not an organic family.  We do, however, buy organic milk when available  -- and ususally there is a store brand organic milk available at the big-chain store around the corner from where we live.  Several of us at Bloggerboy headquarters like milk, and I worry about all the additives that go into modern industrial cows that might make their way into my bloodstream.  (At my age, I'm fighting hard enough not to grow breasts without the additives!)  What I'm trying to say is that I have no idea about the different types and degrees of organic production.  The fresh whole milk that I bought really was some of the best I have tasted.  By comparison, we just got back from a week in Tirol where   we stayed in a family-run pension in an alpine town at 1,500 meters.  The pension also was a family-run organic farm, and there were cows in a stall right next to the pension and fresh milk and butter from those cows each morning at breakfast.  The milk from the store tasted just as good as the milk at our pension, which was excellent.  It had at least 3.8% fat, and there even were a few small clots of cream in the pasteurized milk (i.e. it was not homogenised).  Why buy anything else?  Think of milk that lingers on your palate like a good wine.  I had to suppress a snicker, however, when I read the label. 

"This fresh alpine milk comes exclusively from biodynamic farms.  Demeter Farmers sow, plow and harvest in harmony with the rythm of the stars -- thus using the natural powers of the cosmos."

What had I stumbled into?  I don't have time to go into great detail, but Demeter farming in Germany is closely related to the anthroposophic movement, and there are plenty of anthroposophists in Germany.  More from Wikipedia.

"The development of biodynamic agriculture began in 1924 with a series of eight lectures on agriculture given by philosopher Rudolf Steiner at Schloss Koberwitz in Silesia, Germany, (now Kobierzyce in Poland east of Wrocław). The lectures, the first known to have been given on organic agriculture, were held in response to a request by farmers who noticed degraded soil conditions and a deterioration in the health and quality of crops and livestock resulting from the use of chemical fertilizers. The one hundred and eleven attendees, less than half of whom were farmers, came from six countries, primarily Germany and Poland. The lectures were published in November 1924; the first English translation appeared in 1928 as The Agriculture Course.

The origin of Demeter is a Cooperative for the processing of products of the biodynamic agriculture created in Berlin, Germany, in 1927. The trademark Demeter was registered in 1928. Demeter was administered by the German agronomist Erhard Bartsch who also directed the Experimental Circle of anthroposophical(biodynamic) farmers, and who had chosen the name Demeter, jointly with the German chemist Franz Dreidax. Dreidax was responsible for the development of the Demeter criteria and the quality control. Demeter ceased temporarily to exist in 1941 when the Nazi Government dissolved the Union for biodynamic agriculture. It was reestablished in Germany after the Second World War. In 1997 19 independent Demeter organisations came together to establisch Demeter International.

The certification is the oldest traditional organic certification in Europe and is regarded as the highest grade of organic farming in the world. Certification is difficult to come by and must be renewed annually. Demeter’s “biodynamic” certification requires biodiversity and ecosystem preservation, soil husbandry, livestock integration, prohibition of genetically engineered organisms and viewing the farm as a living “holistic organism”. The certification verifies the fulfillment of the standards on behalf of the farmers, which in turn guarantees high quality food products to the consumers. This is rewarded by receiving a higher price for food certified with the “Demeter” label, ranging from 10-30% on average."

On the more scientific side, the dairy advertizes the high quality of the milk's Omega-3 fatty acids and CLA (conjugated linoleic acids).  Furthermore, the dairy, a cooperative, engages in fair trade practices.  So, with all this in mind, I am going to return my brown glass milk bottle to the store to see how much I paid for it and hope that I can add this milk to my regular diet.

Follow-Up.  I went back to the organic store today and bought two liter bottles of milk.  The price was EUR 1.29 per liter, including sales tax (VAT).  That comes out to about USD 6.86 a US gallon.  I did a bit of surfing, and, although you can find store brand organic milk for lower prices in the US, I saw offers of other types of organic milk from smaller producers in urban areas for prices in the range between USD 5.00 and 7.00 a gallon without sales tax.  What do you think, dear readers?  Frau Bloggerboy got a big clump of cream in her glass this afternoon.  She remarked that the taste reminded her of "cows" and "hay".  Not sure that is a compliment, but if she doesn't like it, there's more left for me.

Time Out

"Quintuple meter or quintuple time is a musical meter characterized by 5 beats in a measure. Like the more common duple, triple, and quadruple meters, it may be simple, with each beat divided in half, or compound, with each beat divided into thirds. The most common time signatures for simple quintuple meter are 5/4 and 5/8.

Until after the Second World War, quintuple time was virtually unheard of in the American genres of jazz and popular music. When in 1944, Stravinsky was commissioned by Billy Rose to compose a fifteen-minute dance component to be incorporated into his Broadway revue, The Seven Lively Arts, Stravinsky composed Scènes de ballet, to be choreographed by Anton Dolin. Rose was enthusiastic about the new score when initially he saw the piano reduction made by Ingolf Dahl, but later was dismayed by the sound of the orchestra, and offended the composer by telegraphing the suggestion that Stravinsky should allow the scoring to be "retouched" by Robert Russell Bennett, who "orchestrates even the works of Cole Porter". Whole sections of the score had to be cut for the Philadelphia premiere, because the New York pit musicians, accustomed to the conventions of Broadway musicals of that period, were unable to manage the 5/8 bars that feature in Stravinsky's score.

In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet released Time Out, a jazz album with music in unusual meters. It included Paul Desmond's "Take Five", in 5/4 time. Against all expectations, the album went platinum, and "Take Five" became a jazz standard. Brubeck had studied with the French composer Darius Milhaud, who in turn had been strongly influenced by Stravinsky, and is credited with the systematic introduction of asymmetrical and shifting rhythms that sparked a far-reaching surge of interest in jazz and popular music in the 1960s."  (Wikipedia)

I had the privilege of seeing Dave Brubeck live back in the Seventies.  I used to play the trumpet, and  5/4 time is tough.  

David Warren Brubeck, 12/6/1920 - 12/5/2012.

Things I Don't Understand

I really don't want to get caught up in political discussions at this site, but I find myself scratching my head about the facts in the current sex scandal in the US.  Did I mention that I am tired of sex scandals in the US?  I find them boring and, in all but the most extreme cases, irrelevant.

1.  A woman sends an harrassing e-mail to another woman.
2.  The other woman takes the mail to the FBI.
3.  The FBI gets involved.

[Stop right here.  Since when does the FBI get involved when two women have a spat, presumably over a shared [lover] male friend via e-mail?  I can understand how a woman with a certain status, having access to powerful people, might think that the FBI is there to do her bidding, but I just don't understand how the FBI felt justified in investigating such a situation.  What am I missing?  UPDATE:  "Ms. Kelley, a volunteer who organizes social events for military personnel in the Tampa area, complained in May about the emails to a friend who is an FBI agent. That agent referred it to a cyber crimes unit, which opened an investigation.  However, supervisors soon became concerned that the initial agent might have grown obsessed with the matter, and prohibited him from any role in the investigation, according to the officials.  The FBI officials found that he had sent shirtless pictures of himself to Ms. Kelley, according to the people familiar with the probe."  OK, now this is starting to make sense.]

4.  The FBI plunders the first woman's e-mail account.

[Stop right here.  Don't you need a warrant to do that?  What am I missing?]

5.  The FBI finds evidence that the first woman might have had an affair with the head of the CIA.  The FBI decides to investigate further.

[Stop right here.  ... Oh, never mind.]

6.  Someone at the FBI, a "whistleblower" goes to Congress with the information.

[I give up.]