Red Baron's Blog

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Lüften

According to the New York Times, this German word went viral on the Internet. Red Baron blogged about lüften previously, so there is no need to repeat the information here.

What is interesting is the adopted American word for lüften: 'house burping'.

The Environmental Protection Agency (Hasn't POTUS cancelled it?) sees an argument for "burping" American homes that I hadn't heard yet.

"EPA recommends opening windows to reduce the concentration of volatile organic compounds in the home, which are released by a vast array of household items, including furniture, mattresses, cosmetics, and cleaning products. These compounds can cause adverse reactions like headaches, itchy eyes, and breathing problems."

In summer, Red Baron sleeps with the bedroom window tilted; in winter, it is too cold. So in the morning, I get the following warning:

Before midnight, I had already exhaled 1000 ppm of CO₂. So in the morning it was time to burp my bedroom.

This is what I get after a ten-minute lüften.

The word lüften is written with an umlaut where the ü is pronounced like "rue" in French. Will lüften lose its tüttels in America like über?

Uber means 'super' or 'extra'. So Übermensch became Superman/Woman. It is uber-cool to read Friedrich Nietzsche's book.

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Cartooning the Trump Era

As in previous years (2025, 2024, 2023), Red Baron hosted the first Stammtisch of the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft in 2026, with an American theme.

In January's newsletter to our members, I featured a few American cartoons, which received a strong response. On February 4, the Fasnet (carnival) season is in full swing. Why not spend an evening watching a slideshow of political cartoons with my commentary?

Here is the result. For my American followers, it may not be as engaging since they already know the sometimes not-so-funny cartoons.

Let me start with a side-by-side photo showing crowd sizes at the 2009 and 2017 presidential inaugurations. This slide was shown in the weekly German Late Show Extra 3 (drei=dry) aired on television of the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) following Donald Trump's first swearing-in on January 20, 2017

Trump, whose election came as a surprise to Europeans, claimed that the crowds at the ceremony were record-breaking, approaching one to one-and-a-half million attendees. When his Senior Counselor was confronted with the actual figures, she said, "The President has alternative facts."

Like no other sentence, Kellyanne Conway's statement shaped Trump's first presidency. Already at the start, cartoonists had bad feelings about it.