Of Human Shortcoming

For the Threepenny Opera, Bertold Brecht once wrote "Das Lied von der Unzulänglichkeit menschlichen Strebens (Ballad of the Shortcoming of Human Endeavor)" with the tenor: For this life, man/woman are not clever enough.

Der Mensch lebt durch den Kopf, der Kopf reicht ihm nicht aus. Versuch es nur; von deinem Kopf lebt höchstens eine Laus. Denn für dieses Leben ist der Mensch nicht schlau genug. Niemals merkt er eben jeden Lug und Trug.

A man lives by the head but feels the head is not enough. Just try it; off your head subsists at most a louse. Since for this life, man isn't clever enough. He simply never notices all lies and swindles.

Why are there so many lies, meanness, aggression, and violence? Why can't we live together in peace?

For thousands of years, people in various forms of government have tried to regulate their coexistence with the help of religion and laws. Almost always with the threat of punishment in this world or the next for misdeeds against fellow human beings. Such exercises are as old as the human race they will always accompany.

Many ethicists think there is still a lot of animalism in the human mind. However, in the animal kingdom, many species live well together, mainly under the leadership of a leading bull or, better even, a leading cow.

The other day Red Baron had an intuition during a conversation with a circle of friends. It struck him that in the three languages he knows, three statements describe sides of human life perfectly.

First, I would like to mention Brecht again, who wrote: Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral mildly translated into First comes the food and then the morals. In other words: The essential prerequisite for a reasonably orderly coexistence is that everyone has enough to eat.

Brecht wrote this statement in the ballad "Wovon lebt der Mensch" (What Man Lives From)" also for the Threepenny Opera. Did he mean that the basic need to fulfill nutrition is more important than the need for a moral order? Only when survival is ensured for the organism can man begin to integrate himself into ethical systems and create basic structures which enable a peaceful and balanced life with each other.

In English, sentences from the movie Casablanca often come to my mind. These are from the famous song: As time goes by with the lines: It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die.

And indeed. When I look into history, the fight for love and glory usually turns into a dirty war for sex and domination.

What do you think follows from this observation? Do the French perhaps have the answer?

©Facebook

Early on at CERN, I learned from a French colleague who felt set back by his boss the sentence: Dans la vie il n'y a que des emmmerdeurs et des emmerdés or in the less fecal English translation: In life, there are only those who cheat and those who are cheated on.

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Cerberus

You know Cerberus, the dog to hell from Greek mythology. This is also the nickname of a Corona Omicron variant scientifically known as BQ.1.1.

Data suggest that the variant is capable of tricking the immune system. Vaccinations and passed infections may offer little protection against re-infection with the BQ.1.1. virus. Its altered genetic makeup can evade antibodies from vaccinated and recovered individuals better than the previously prevalent variants. As a result, it spreads more quickly.

Indeed, experts are most concerned by the speed with which BQ.1.1 is spreading. Thus, the US immunologist Anthony Fauci warned about the rapid doubling time.

The number of infections with BQ.1.1 doubles about every week, especially in Europe and North America, and Frankfurt virologist Martin Stürmer warns of exponential growth.

 
Whether Red Baron imported Cerberus from the States is unknown, for the result of his PCR test was not sequenced.


In the new Infection Protection Act, the federal government placed expanded corona protection measures under the states' authority. Now fall is here, and with it comes a concern about another sharp increase in corona infection numbers. In Hamburg, masks are mandatory for public transportation. The Berlin Senate wants to decide whether to make masks compulsory in supermarkets. In Brandenburg and Saxonia-Anhalt, something similar is pending. Bavaria prefers the mask only in certain places to protect people at risk, while Hesse and Saarland, for example, recommend voluntary wearing.

But the health ministers of the federal states have decided at a meeting to proceed in a unified manner with the introduction of a possible mask obligation indoors and to work out appropriate threshold values for this, "It is important to us that, if possible, a uniform procedure is decided, that it is as clear as possible, if the incidence is 500 or 1000, that one proceeds in the same way in Hamburg as well as in Munich."

Meanwhile, individual clinics are already reporting staff shortages. So much for the situation in Germany.


Anyone infected with Corona in Germany must be isolated for at least five days. Is that still necessary? How do other countries currently handle the quarantine obligation?

The critics argue that it is time to treat Corona like a "normal" disease and rely on personal responsibility. In addition, symptom-free infected persons could go to work with masks and thus alleviate staff shortages, including in clinics. Proponents of mandatory isolation - such as our Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) - warn, however, that the number of infections will rise.

Several European countries abolished the isolation obligation, called quarantine, months ago.

 

©ZDF

In Austria, there has been no quarantine obligation since August - instead, the government relies on "traffic restrictions." This means that infected persons are only allowed to leave their homes under special rules - they must wear an FFP2 mask and are prohibited from entering schools or hospitals unless they work in the respective institution.

On April 1, 2022, the Swiss Federal Council lifted all nationwide Corona measures. Since then, the federal government and cantons have limited themselves to vaccination and behavioral recommendations.

©ZDF

Across Switzerland, the number of infected persons is currently increasing. The 7-day incidence is over 400, but only five percent of hospital patients are there because of Corona. This is seen by Swiss authorities as confirmation that no further action is needed.

The basic argument of the Federal Council is quite typical of Switzerland: the personal responsibility of the individual or individuals is placed above collectivist protection.

©ZDF

In Poland, there has been no requirement for isolation since March 28.

In February, the isolation requirement was abolished in all parts of the United Kingdom. In the event of a positive test, the request is to isolate for five days if possible.

The infection figures remain at a high level. This means there is no relief for hospitals, which now fear a double wave of Corona and flu for the fall and winter.

An immunologist at Imperial College in London, Prof. Danny Altmann, says, "The political will to get off Covid has been so strong that we are knowingly sending highly infectious people into workplaces, schools, and doctors' offices. We're paying a heavy price for that."

As of March 28, Spain no longer has a quarantine requirement for mild and asymptomatic cases.

Since then, infection numbers have remained relatively stable. The same is true for the number of deaths. The utilization of hospitals and intensive care units has been at the lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic. In general, the elimination of mandatory quarantine has worked well.

The re-introduction of mandatory isolation is not an issue in all these countries. And in Germany?

©RKI

That infection rates are rising - as feared by some in Germany - cannot be proven from the data. However, falling incidence curves must not be allowed to deceive either: At the same time as central Corona measures - such as compulsory isolation - are abolished, test numbers fall significantly, i.e., the incidence falls only on paper.

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Democratic Vistas

… or a One Day Pop-Up Think Tank: Sharing Ideas for a Transatlantic Future.

Starting at 11 AM on Saturday, lectures and discussions filled the whole day until 8:30 PM in the evening. The number of talks and the many topics covered make it challenging to give a complete overview.

Instead, Red Baron picked out some details that turned him on, e.g., the German author Thomas Mann as a mentor of democracy?

Kai Sina on Thomas Mann and Democracy

In 1914, the ardent monarchist Thomas Mann published his first essay, "Gedanken im Kriege (Thoughts in War)," while his older brother Heinrich advocated a republic and an understanding with France. Their dispute finally divided the brothers.*

*Part of the following text is drawn from the German Wikipedia

In 1918, this publication was followed by "Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Reflections of a non-politician)." Here, Thomas Mann tries to establish a "Germanness" and to explain the German "Sonderweg" (particular path) in terms of intellectual history and history, which according to him, is incompatible with the democratic principles of France, England, and the USA.

"In Germany's soul, the intellectual antagonisms of Europe are being fought out." The ideals of democracy and Western civilization cannot be asserted against the inner nature of Germany, for ... "free is the people only when one rules, not when many rule."

Mann emphasizes, "I profess and am deeply convinced ... that the much-maligned German 'Obrigkeitsstaat (authoritarian state)' is and remains the form of state appropriate to the German people, suitable to them and basically desired by them..."

Further below, he speaks of a future people's state, which is to be realized, beyond Western democracy and its connected capitalism and socialism, as it was about to develop in Russia.

Are these last ideas already echoes of Mann's speech "Von deutscher Republik (Of German Republic)," which he delivered on October 13, 1922, on the occasion of Gerhart Hauptmann's 60th birthday?

In 1922, after dealing with the poetry of Novalis and Walt Whitman, Thomas Mann committed to the Weimar Republic. Is the content of the speech a break with the conservative-national "Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen" of 1918? 

Had Mann changed from a Saul to a Paul?

Thomas Mann declared that democracy - contrary to what its opponents claimed - fits German culture and tradition better than Wilhelminism and "sentimental obscurantism." In particular, he said, the friendly and modest public demeanor of Reichspräsident Friedrich Ebert convinced him that democracy was a more German thing than "imperial gala opera."

Democracy must be taught.

The intention of the speech was to encourage, in particular, students to abandon their opposition to the Weimar Republic. Even though the speech is anchored in national-conservative thought, Thomas Mann uses it to underscore his commitment to "German" humanity, opposing völkisch-antisemitic machinations.

Did Thomas Mann's avowal of the Republic correspond to an inner change of heart? Many interpreters believe that after more than 300 political murders in the past three years, he felt personal guilt for the widespread public silence in the face of "disgusting and inane murderous acts."

Following his emigration to the States in 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became Mann's hero, idol, and Obrigkeit.

In John Nichols' spirited lecture What Carl Schurz and Walt Whitman Teach Us about Today's Struggle for Democracy, we learned that the famous American democracy started as the assembly of old wealthy white protestant men. The initial setup developed into democratic structures that nevertheless still lack finalization.

An example is the Electoral College, where presidential candidates who haven't reached the majority of the popular votes are elected into office.

In the US, one senator represents 284,000 people in Wyoming to 18,671,000 in California.

A similar disproportion holds for Switzerland, where each Kanton has two Ständeräte in the "upper" house, while in Germany, each state sends at least three representatives into the Bundesrat. This number, however, is pondered, increasing to a maximum of six according to the population in a state.

As a pupil, Red Baron learned that Churchill once said about the British system of democracy, "It isn't one hundred percent democratic, but it works." So we have to live with imperfect democracies in the making.

The title of an impulse lecture by Mirrianne Mahn, city councilwoman of Frankfort, was Representation, Democracy, and Women. What else? Her presentation turned around abortion, comparing the situation in Germany to the States. She did not look much at the progress already made but harped on non-compliance and lack of (fast) progress in both countries.

Joshua Yaffa, journalist and foreign correspondent reported about A Continent at War: Russia, Ukraine, and the West. Having lived in the war-torn region, he gave a complete overview of the past and present situation.

Joshua Sellers, currently working at the American Academy in Berlin, drew in his lecture The Law of Democracy and Racial Equity a somber picture of racial equality in the States concerning election-law doctrines, electoral structures (including meandering), policies, and practices.

It was nearly 5 PM, and Red Baron was tired. 

But before I left, the lecturers and the organizing team met for a group photo. 

Well done, and thank you, Carl-Schurz-Haus.

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An Ambassador in Freiburg

More precisely: The United States ambassador to Germany, Her Excellency Professor Dr. Amy Gutmann, came from Berlin to Freiburg to honor the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the Carl-Schurz-Haus, formerly Amerikahaus, in Freiburg.

Since Richard Grenell stepped back as ambassador in Berlin on June 1, 2020, the post has been vacant until February 17, 2022.

Wikipedia knows, "Through her writings, Gutmann has consistently sought to bridge theory and policy to advance the core values of a civil democratic society: liberty, opportunity, and mutual respect."

We waited for her at the Gerichtslaube (courthouse) entrance, the oldest town hall in Freiburg, where she came on foot. Leaving her limousine with the Berlin license plates behind, she walked toward Mayor Martin Horn, smiling.

From the right
America's Consul General in Frankfurt, Norman Thatcher Scharpf,
Lord Mayor Martin Horn, Ambassador Amy Gutmann, 
Freiburg’s Finance Mayor Stefan Breiter, and
 Hanna Böhme, Managing Director at Freiburg Wirtschaft Touristik Messe GmbH.

They took a group photo before the flagpole with the Star-Spangled Banner.

Martin Horn wearing his chain of office on occasion welcomed the ambassador. He regarded her visit as a sign of the tight connection between Freiburg and the USA. In this context, he mentioned the city partnership with Madison, Wisconsin, the "global players" Pfizer and Stryker busy in Freiburg, and of course, the Carl-Schurz-Haus, on whose 70th birthday Amy Gutmann came to Freiburg. The CHS is a great institution dedicated to German-American relations, said Horn, bringing people together.

Consul General Scharpf is listening too.

In her answer, Amy Gutmann found it spectacular that Freiburg University was founded in 1457 - making it more than 300 years older than the United States. She praised innovation and creativity in Freiburg, particularly important in times of crisis. Meeting people who share the same values despite the pandemic, the Ukraine war and the energy crisis is a pleasure. Sending the greetings of President Joe Biden, who considers it essential to strengthen German-American relations, she hoped this would not be her last visit to this "wonderful city."

During her speech, Amy Gutmann exuded enthusiasm and esprit. When she approached the invited American students, she was entranced.

       

The traditional exchange of presents

The ambassador signed the city's Golden Book.

Her enthusiasm continued in the evening when she gave the Carl-Schurz lecture. Freiburg's good parlor, the Kaisersaal in the historic Kaufhaus, was filled to capacity. A long line formed in front of the entrance as all registrations for the evening were checked. Red Baron was glad to have a seat reserved among the members of the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft. From there, I took some photos.

The Director of the Carl-Schurz-Haus
Friederike Schulte welcomes the ambassador and the guests.

The Mayor for Cultural Affairs
Ullrich von Kirchbach addresses the crowd

Ambassador Amy Gutmann
gives  the Carl Schurz Lecture

Hymns by Paul Hindemith and songs by Kurt Weill
with texts by Walt Whitman

Amy Gutmann based her lecture "Our Shared Responsibilities for Tomorrow" on two quotations. One from Benjamin Franklin, the other from Carl-Schurz.

Franklin's comment at the time of signing the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately," Gutmann extended to the German-American relations. We two countries must stand together to defend our democratic values, especially in times of crisis.

Carl Schurz's saying, "My country, right or wrong," - he replied to a country fellow who accused him as an immigrant of not being sufficiently American - you find nearly always truncated. Carl Schurz notably added, "If [my country is] right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right," referring to his active involvement in building the American democracy, such as the founding of the Republican Party.

Her lecture perfectly introduced the following One Day Pop-Up Think Tank: Democratic Vistas, Sharing Ideas for a Transatlantic Future.

From the left, the Ukrainian and the German student,
Ambassador Gutmann and the Tunisian student (©Meike Voß)

It followed a discussion between the ambassador and three students of the Freiburg Bosch College.

Amy told these students not only to protest against things they would like to have changed but to engage themselves actively politically.

Concerning the spread of fake news in social media, she recommended not to suck it in but to answer any false information fast and precisely.

Ultimately, Professor Gutmann insisted that you must teach and learn history. Only then can you learn from history. This last remark warmed Red Baron's heart.

Ambassador Gutmann is a stroke of luck for Germany.

The beer brewed on the occasion
was süffig (went down well).

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The Forgotten Pandemic

The Ukrainian war and the resulting energy crisis have pushed the Corona pandemic into the background. 

Corona variants in Germany. Click to enlarge (©ZDF)

Another reason is that infections with the Omicron BA.5 variant of the virus are relatively mild. In most cases, symptoms are limited to the upper throat, while the lungs are spared.

Red Baron is a good example. I must have caught the virus on my trip to Freiburg's sister city Madison in early September because I tested positive for Covid 19 upon my return. Although I didn't have a fever, I felt pretty shitty for two days afterward, to put it mildly. After about ten days, the spook was over.

Initially, I still suffered from loss of taste, but in the meantime, I feel more or less "normal" if it weren't for fatigue that limits my activities considerably.

Provisions of the new Infektionsschutzgesetz of October 1, 2022.
Click to enlarge.

What is the infection situation in Germany? Since October 1, a new Infection Protection Act has come into force, placing more competence in health matters in the hands of the states. A mandatory mask in public transport remains a nationwide measure.

In the meantime, the Oktoberfest took place in Munich, which, as expected, proved to be a corona spreader. The incidence in Bavaria has risen to 1097 cases per 100,000 inhabitants compared to Germany's 788. 

©ZDF

A new wave of infection is building up in Germany.

Covod-19 patients in intensive care (©ZDF)

An important indicator in earlier hygiene measures was the hospital's occupancy rate of intensive care beds. This is rising again with the developing autumn wave. The values cannot yet be compared with those of previous years.

According to a doctor friend, I should get through the winter well after my Corona infection. In the meantime, a fifth booster vaccination is offered in Germany.

The other day on Stephen Colbert's Late Show, I saw Dr. Fauci picking up his fifth booster vaccination live in a drugstore in the center of Manhattan. After getting infected three and a half months ago, Dr. Fauci said it was time for the targeted vaccination against the Omicron BA5 variant.

I will keep it that way and pick up my fifth vaccination in mid-December. I wish all my readers that they stay healthy through the winter.

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Spooky Action

… at a distance called Albert Einstein the entanglement of particles, an effect that is laid down in the Schrödinger equation. This equation describes the behavior of subatomic particles and allows calculating their whereabouts on a micro geometric level. The so-called wave function gives the probability of a particle in space from here to infinity.

©Nobel Prize Committee

Now imagine a system of two photons (Alice and Bob) - one spinning in one, the other in the opposite direction - moving apart. Their wave function changes in shape - will be smeared out - but remains common to the system, i.e., the photons stay entangled. That means that if one photon changes its spin, the other has to follow simultaneously because the Pauli exclusion principle demands that the total spin of a system remains constant.

The late John Bell doing "chalk physics" at CERN (©CERN)

This entanglement aligns with Bell's theorem that quantum mechanics is incompatible with local hidden-variable theories. Entanglement shows that particle interactions are not only mediated by physical fields but can occur at speeds greater than the speed of light. No "hidden variables" dictate the "paradoxical" correlation between entangled particles; in other words, the experimental results of this year's Noble Prize winners show that quantum mechanics is complete.

In particular, Anton Zeilinger (University of Vienna, Austria) used entangled quantum states to demonstrate quantum teleportation, which allows a quantum state to be transferred from one particle to another at a distance. This earned him the nickname "Mr. Beam," referring to the "Star Trek" series.

My former institute, CERN, not only contributed a photo of the late John Bell, who had spent the last years of his career in Geneva but a general outlook too: These delicate, pioneering experiments not only confirmed quantum theory but established the basis for a new field of science and technology that has applications in computing, communication, sensing, and simulation.

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The Kiss

After "The Thinker," Paul Rodin's most famous work,
"The Kiss" is one of his most popular.
The "Le Baiser" in Carrara marble can be admired in Paris
at the Musée Rodin (©Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/Wikipedia).
Between 1898 and 1903, the master authorized the
Barbedienne foundry in Paris to cast a few reduced bronzes.

It was late; my father always came home late. There he was, the big strong man, standing in the passage between the dining room and the living room. In his hands, he held Auguste Rodin's bronze casting, The Kiss.

We boys looked incredulous, and our mother, as so often, was concerned. She had been concerned about the family all her life and looked concerned.

It was said that a customer could not pay his bill and had offered my father The Kiss as a ransom. It must have been in 1957.

Three years later, my father died, overworked from a heart attack.

The question that arose in 1957 was where to place The Kiss. Finally, a corner was found in the living room by the garden window.

The problem: a three-dimensional art object is thus reduced to two dimensions; it can only be viewed from one side.

©Museum für Neue Kunst

I, therefore, found it refreshing that the invitation to today's vernissage showed the equally beautiful backs of the actors.

Hamburg 1957

The kiss stood in my mother's home in Hamburg until her death. She lived to be 90 and was a widow longer than she was married, but whenever we spent the vacations with our children at Grandma's in Hamburg or she visited us in Geneva, her ceterum censeo was, "Children, it could be the last time."

Then in 1974, she wrote her last will bequeathing me The Kiss.

After my mother's death, The Kiss made the long journey to Geneva, but even there, it had only a niche existence.

Freiburg 2021

Since my move to Freiburg in 2001, I carried myself with the thought of redeeming those lovers who are constantly squeezed into corners.

A first attempt with the Museum für Neue Kunst (MNK, Contemporary Art) came to nothing, but after my wife's death, I actively took care of the transfer.

Mr. Zipperlen from the Badische Zeitung asked me, "Why do you bequeath The Kiss to Freiburg and not to your hometown?"

Once again, a statement by Martin Heidegger came painfully to my mind. Towards the end of his life, his Black Forest home meant everything to him, more than his entire philosophy. I have often asked myself: Where is my homeland?

I was born in the Ruhr district, moved to all the German Gaue (regions) during the war, spent nine high school years in Hamburg, studied in Tübingen, Göttingen, and Munich, and finally spent 32 years in Geneva. Where is my homeland?

My wife is buried in Freiburg, and I will stay here too. May I consider the city that has grown so close to my heart as my hometown?

MNK Freiburg, October 6, 2022

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