Glokalisierung

Today’s world is suffering from supply bottlenecks, and don’t tell me the blocked Suez Canal is still the culprit. Some economists blame the Covid pandemic and others that we have reached the end of economic growth. Red Baron is not an expert, but whatever caused the stuttering world economy, we must change from globalization to glocalization.

Think global, act local (©️stock.adobe.com)

Delivery chains are too long and likely to be broken, and transport distances are often enormous and cost lots of fossil energy. So it is pretty natural that industrial companies are bringing home production. Re-shoring and near-shoring will make us less dependent on unpredictable partners and fragile supply chains. In fact, the European Single Market is comparable in size to the US and should become self-sustained.

The European Commission wants to put chip supply on its home feet. The European auto industry is building its own infrastructure for batteries. However, Red Baron thinks that in the future, mobility should be based on hydrogen that, when produced from wind and solar energy, is a zero-emission technology.

All this will lead to sustainability through shorter transport routes, intense technology development, and new local jobs.

Red Baron eats seasonal, local, and primarily meatless as far as his food is concerned. I have given up buying sausages and instead stick to yogurt, eggs, and cheese for my protein. At Freiburg’s Minster Market, I don’t buy grapes in November and don’t need strawberries in April.

My season opens with asparagus grown in the Markgräfler Länd south of Freiburg; later, my choice is chanterelles, mainly from Poland. Then I wait for damsons from the Bühlertal in the Black Forest, prepared as Zwetschenschnitte.

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Glossarium

Traditionally, the news situation is thin at the beginning of a new year. So, on January 2, Red Baron read an article in the Sunday edition of the Badische Zeitung about a General German Glossary.

Well, I wrote about the Allgemeines Deutsches Glossarium already in June 2018, and now four years later, the mammoth project has come to an end. Let us recall:

 

©Basler Universitätsbibliothek

This Allgemeine Deutsche Glossarium is a sensation in the German-speaking world, containing over 100,000 keywords and terms compiled during the first half of the 18th century by Johann Jakob Spreng, a professor in Basel.

Since then, this treasure of compiled words had gathered dust in the university library. It was discovered more by chance in 2014. Linguist Heinrich Löffler had stumbled upon the alphabetical dictionary written on 100,000 slips of paper glued onto 20,000 pages gathered in 20 manuscript volumes. The rest of the paper slips were sorted into envelopes. Thanks to him and numerous helpers and supporters, the mammoth task of editorial indexing was completed and issued in a seven-volume edition for further studies.

 

Red Baron acquired the layman's edition for his browsing entertainment. As my readers know, languages are one of my hobbies.

Although in 1742, Spreng was the founder of the "German Society" in Basel, he had to struggle throughout his life. Educated as a Protestant theologian, he worked as an educator, preacher, and pastor. As late as 1743, Spreng became professor honorarius of German rhetoric and poetry, later of Swiss history and Greek at the University of Basel.

While Latin was still the dominant language in higher education, Spreng advocated courses held in German at the university. But many terms and words did not exist in German. Spreng assumed that in the linguistic vocabulary of all areas of life, there was an appearance of  "common Germanic affinities" to individual languages. So he started to examine words from various sources for traces of Germanic origin, i.e., Old and Middle High German, but also foreign languages and dialects, to make German a scientifically sound and standard language.

Spreng, a linguistic purist, piloted his issue when he Germanized "Latin terms," e.g., Akademie (academy) into Erzschule (arch school), Mathematiker (mathematician) into Wisskünstler (knowledge artist), Studenten (students) into Zuchtsöhne (sons of discipline), and Professor into Hochlehrer (high teacher). This word is pretty close to the modern Hochschullehrer frequently used for professors.

With his neologisms, Spreng stands in the tradition of the Fruitbearing Society during and after the Thirty Years' War.

Students said about the "eccentric" Spreng, "Now he is working on a German dictionary or lexicon of appallingly large size, which, as it is said, gives many folios. Apart from that, he is an oeconomus, has many debts, and it is said that the expenses for books, maps, and other scientific objects will ruin him completely."

Spreng’s Glossarium would have been the largest German dictionary of the 18th century, surpassed only by the "German Dictionary" of the Brothers Grimm. According to Spreng the glossary is „kein trokenes Wörterbuch, (…) sondern mit annemlichen und merkwürdigen Anzügen durchaus versehen, das nicht nur Sprachforschern, sondern überhaubt auch allerley Gelehrten, Standespersonen, Kanzleybeamten, und Liebhabern schöner Wissenschaften nützlich und gleichsam unentbährlich werde (not a dull dictionary, (...) but one that is thoroughly furnished with interesting and strange features which will not only be useful and, as it were, indispensable to linguists, but also to all kinds of scholars, registrars, clerks, and lovers of fine art.)“

Spreng had neither found the public interest nor the money to publish his opus magnum during his lifetime. Too sad.

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FreiVAC

Yesterday again, two demonstrations took place in downtown Freiburg. There was the usual march of the anti-vaxxers. They plan to march every weekend until politics change course and the government caves in on obligatory vaccination. 

Mayor Martin Horn had criticized last Saturday's demo on Facebook, "Yes, we are all corona tired! Yes, everyone is allowed to demonstrate in our country and express their own opinion. But when I see signs comparing police forces to concentration camp guards, it's disgusting and unbearable."

We were all behaving well.

Thus the tone was set for the contra demonstration of FreiVAC, the newly formed Freiburg Alliance against Conspiracy Ideology (Verschwörungsideologie), Anti-Semitism & Corona Trivialization.

Around 3000 participants assembled at the Square of the Old Synagogue while - well separated - the anti-vaxxers met on Friedrichstraße. Organized by FreiSeinFreiburg (Be Free Freiburg), they formed their march for "Freedom, Humanity and Reason" with about 7000 participants.

FFP2 masks and distances were mainly kept.

Hendrik Meyer, the FreiVAC organizer, immediately rolled out the heavy artillery against the anti-corona demonstrators, "They have the infinite audacity to claim they live in a dictatorship. With their lies, they mock the pandemic victims and their relatives. They insult the clinic medical staff and deride the people whose lives got off the rails because of the pandemic."

Spokeswoman Anna Schmidt harped on the anti-Semitic attitude of some Corona trivializers by showing posters with concentration camp motifs but above all in the anti-Semitic narrative of the pandemic planned as a "global world conspiracy," allegedly organized by Jews.

Chantal Kopf, a member of the Green Party elected to the Bundestag, referred to the Square of the Old Synagogue, "We say no, here in this place. Dissent in a democratic constitutional state is not the same as resistance in a dictatorship." She continued, "This pandemic has cost the lives of more than 100,000 people and changed families, so vaccination against the coronavirus is an act of practical solidarity."

Silvia Schliebe of the association "Jewish for All" came down hard on protesters for their closeness to fascists, "We don't care if you think you're good people. If you're marching with the right-wingers, you're not. It's up to all of us to push back this brown plague."

Why does her harsh statement let me think of Louis Armstrong's version of the Whiffenpoof song? In his text, Louis refers to Dizzy Gillespie playing bebop and condemning Dixieland music at the Birdland in New York, "They are poor little lambs who've lost their way, bye-bye bebop, they are little sheep who've gone astray, bye-bye bebop."

Note the heart-shaped balloons carried mainly by children (©ARD)

They were on national television (©ARD)

Initiator Malte Wendt of the anti-vaxxer demo said the march at Freiburg should convey an image quite different from the one portrayed in the media, "Anyone who sees our heart posters will no longer believe the media afterward."

©ARD

Again: Are they just innocent followers, or should one resist brown beginnings?

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SchUM

With all the developments around Corona and during the holiday season, I didn't find time to work on the third part* of my Worms trilogy, the Jewish heritage that figures under the name of SchUM.

*Here are the other parts: Stones Are Talking History and Here I Stand 

SchUM* is an acronym from the initial Hebrew letters of the medieval names of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The Romans founded these three cities and named them Noviomagus (later Spira), Wormatia, and Moguntiatum. Diaspora Jews settling with the Romans called the cities Schpira, Warmaisa, and Magenza.

*Schin (Sch ש) for Schpira (Speyer), Waw (U ו) for Warmais (Worms), and Mem (M מ) for Magenza (Mainz)

In the Middle Ages, the three cities had important Jewish communities. Much of their cultural heritage was destroyed over the centuries in deadly pogroms. In 1346, when the plague infested Europe, the Jews being accused of well poisoning were slaughtered.

The "official" beginnings of Jewish life on German territory date back 1700 years. The first mention of Jews arriving in the area between the Danube and the Rhine in the wake of Roman legions is documented in a decree by Emperor Constantine, dated 321. It states that the council of the Colonia Agrippina could force Jews to take up offices (jobs?). How should we imagine Jewish life in Cologne at that time when all traces disappeared soon after that? Only from the 10th century onwards can one speak of the continuity of German-Jewish life.

The history of the Jews in medieval Germany can still be traced today in numerous places. These include gravestones, ritual baths (mikva'ot), and excavations of synagogues, as well as street names such as "Judengasse" or "Judengraben."

But like the life and work of the Jews, their persecution has also left traces. Anti-Jewish slurs are found on church buildings ...

Blindfolded Synagogue	Triumphant Church

... ranging from the juxtaposition of the blinded Synagoga with the triumphant Ecclesia, e.g., at Freiburg's Minster church...

...to depictions of the vile "Judensau" on the Wittenberg City Church.

Of the SchUM communities, Worms is distinguished for its synagogue dating back in its origins to the year 1034. The place of worship was destroyed during the Nazi era and rebuilt after the war.

A statue of Rabbi Schlomo ben Yitzchak
in the courtyard of the Worms Synagogue

The most important Bible and Talmud commentator to this day, Rashi (Rabbi Schlomo ben Yitzchak) from Troyes in northern France, had studied in Worms for a time.

Our group, wearing masks and paper hats instead of kippas, listened to our guide's explanations.

Soon after the war, a Holocaust memorial plaque was placed in the synagogue's vestibule. The erased spots held the names of the Worms Jewish community members who were later found alive.

The reconstruction of the synagogue after the war must have been badly botched. The rear part of the building is currently stabilized with iron girders. The Mikveh in front was inaccessible because of the danger of collapse.

After lunch, the visit to the Holy Sand, the old Jewish cemetery, was the second highlight of the day.

Near the entrance are the two famous Rabbi Meir ben Baruch graves, called of Rothenburg († 1293) and Alexander ben Salomon Wimpfen († 1307). Both matzevahs (מַצֵּבָה) are among the most unique tombstones in the cemetery. They are the destination of many pious Jews from all over the world, who place visitation stones as a remembrance here. Red Baron learned that the Hebrew word for pebble is tz'ror, but the word also means bond.

Look into the Rabbinental (Vale of the Rabbis), the extended burial ground.

View of Worms Cathedral from the cemetery, known as the Martin Buber view. While reflecting on the ties between God and the Jews and between Jewry and Christendom, Buber made this visual axis a must for any visitor.

Yaakov ha-bahur's tombstone is the oldest in the Holy Sand. Not accessible, it is the taller one of the two stones located in the center of the meadow, dating from 1076/1077.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Worms' Jewish community occupied a new cemetery section. It is located on the higher ground formed by the remnant of the outer city fortifications that were destroyed by the troops of Louis XIV of France in 1689 during the Nine Years' War. 

With the emancipation of the Jews in the 19th century, their tombstones stylistically resembled those of Christian cemeteries. Inscriptions were often bilingual in Hebrew and German.

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Looking Back

 Happy New Year again to all my readers.

At the beginning of a new year, one should look forward, but let me look back to 860 blogs published since I wrote my first blog on May 26, 2010.

I would've liked to give you the blog with the most visits, but that would be wrong. In 2016 and 2017, my blog was hacked. You can see this in the long-term statistics of blog views.

Nevertheless, the winner is Pretzelgate, followed by Adenauer, and the "false" bronze medal goes to Super 2017.

As compensation, I am giving you the ranking of the last 12 months for the blog statistics seem back to normal again. Asterix et le. Griffon, Insignificance, and Münster Mapping are all from 2021, but the blog in fourth place, Schopenhauer versus Hegel, is from April 2, 2015.

Otherwise, the outlook for 2022 looks grim, particularly concerning Corona and climate change. These global challenges are flanked by tensions between the three superpowers, with the European Union weakened by internal quarrels as bystanders.

What a world.

Before I leave, here are the latest graphics regarding Corona in the States and Germany:

Covid cases in the US (©NYT)

Covid cases in Germany (©NYT)

It is interesting to note that Germany, as usual, is behind the US in the Covid development. Of the previous Delta variant, the US had its maximum already on September 4, 2021, with 164,000 cases, while Germany had its maximum on November 29, with 58,000 cases. 

Before the Omicron onset, a minimum was reached in the US on November 4, with 70,800 cases, and in Germany on December 29, with 26,500 cases. Red Baron reported.

Looking at the daily figure of 760,000 on January 11, 2022, for the States, I would expect daily figures of more than 200.000 for Germany soon. 

 

It is comforting to know that Dr. Fauci expects case numbers in the US to decrease by mid-February. Do we Germans have to wait until mid-March? 

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Omicron Ante Portas

©ZDF

While in surrounding countries and the US, infections with the Corona Omicron variant reach new records ...

©ZDF

... Germany had decreasing values with the dominant Delta variant …

Where does it build up, the Omicron wave? Where is it building up?
(©Stuttman /BZ)

… but we are waiting for the Omicron wave.

This apocalyptic scenario inspired me to project the present situation in Germany to the Asterix comic. The following text is mainly taken from the English standard introduction and therefore copyrighted by Goscinny and Udzero, the creators of Asterix le Gaulois.

©ZDF

The month is December 2021. Europe is entirely dominated by the Omicron variant.

Well, not entirely … One country of indomitable Germans still holds out against the invader.

Here are some of the German leaders facing the ongoing and assailing pandemic:

Olaf, the red chancellor. He is a shrewd and cunning short politician; all perilous missions and tasks automatically fall to him. Nobody knows where he gets his superhuman confidence from. Is it Karl who administers him fortifying jabs?

Robert, the green vice-chancellor. Not really Olaf's friend. A man commanding a super ministry. But he is always ready to drop everything and go off to ban fossil fuels or save trees.

Karl studied medical druid. He loves cooking but refuses to brew magic potions. He impresses his fellow countrymen/women with lengthy analyses of the Corona situation instead.

Christian, the yellow finance guru. Although he thinks he is a genius, opinion is divided as to his financial competence. So long as he doesn't act, let alone speak, everybody likes him.

Omicron is coming on (©ZDF)

Omicron is apparently a particularly clever Corona variant that has clearly recognized how to conquer the world: It is highly contagious but rarely kills the host, so it can spread further and further. Most people survive - and so does the virus. That's better than Delta, but the next few weeks will be tough.

And indeed, the day before yesterday seemed to be the turning point in Germany. The 7-day Corona incidence per 100,000 people is developing as follows:

27.12.: 222,7
28.12.: 215,6
29.12.: 205,5
30.12.: 207,7
31.12.: 214,9

Here comes Christian Drosten, Germany's Fauci's concluding remark, "It's a good situation when you have a virus that doesn't make you so sick anymore, but it's easily transmissible. So it basically seeks out and finds all the immunity gaps in the population, causing another natural immunity update." How comforting.

I wish you all the best for 2022 and, above all, good health.

May the coming year, despite the approaching Omicron wave, be better than 2021.

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Between the Years

Is Freiburg at the Origin of the Christmas Tree?

Fakes are nothing new. Here is a steel engraving from 1843 by Carl August Schwerdgeburth (1785-1878) titled "Dr. Martin Luther im Kreise seiner Familie zu Wittenberg am Christabend 1536" (Dr. Martin Luther surrounded by his family in Wittenberg on Christmas Eve, 1536). The person watching the scene behind the chair clearly is Philip Melanchthon, Luther's expert on Old Greek and more; the two old people can't be Luther's parents because they were dead by then.

Luther ought to have said, "If I knew that the world ended tomorrow, I still would plant an apple tree today." Since I am convinced he would not have cut down a small fir tree, the candled Christmas tree in Luther's parlor is a fake. On the other hand, does Luther accompany his ten-year-old son Johannes on the lute singing his father's popular Christmas carol, "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" (From heaven above I come)?

This does not mean that Christmas parlors at Luther's time had to do without evergreen ornaments. According to a legend from the Breisgau, the Brotherhood of Bakers in Freiburg decorated a tree (fir?) with gingerbread, apples, paper, and colored nuts as early as 1419.

Historical is a document from Strasbourg in 1492 describing the purchase of fir trees, "Item Koüfft 9 Tannen in die 9 Kirchspill, das gut jor darjnn zu empfohlen, unnd darumb gebenn 2 Gulden (Alike bought 9 fir trees for 9 parishes entrusted for a good year and gave for them 9 gilders)."

Another historical evidence is from 1521, when the forester in Schlettstadt (Sélestat), Alsace, was paid to tend the meyen. Meyen is a term for the festive tree decorated at Christmas but with no lights. It was not until 1611 that Duchess Dorothea Sibyl of Brandenburg first decorated a Christmas tree with candles.

In bourgeois circles, the Christmas tree came into vogue only in the late 18th century. Goethe frequently writes about Christmas trees and how he cut down a fir tree in his prince's forest. That was a forest crime, severely punished at the time.

Christmas in Freiburg‘s Minster Church

The church is decorated with LED-illuminated fir trees

Between the solemnities of the Nativity and the Epiphany of the Lord, the interior of the Freiburg's Minster church is quiet and mostly empty except for those …

Admire the splendid Poinsettia (in German Weihnachtsstern > Christmas Star)

… who want to donate a candle to the church's patron saint, St. Mary, …

A girl and a boy with their rose and bluebonnets

… and those who admire the large crib.

 

Germany's Two Churches on Corona

The Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Central Germany, Friedrich Kramer, expressed concern about the sharpness of the controversy over Corona vaccinations. "Vaccination and the debate about it have taken on a religious character. The absoluteness of the statements reminds me of articles of faith, "complained the leading clergyman. "Don't judge people solely by their vaccination status. If you start lumping people together only by what they say, think, or do, you remain in witch-hunt mode." So we must love the anti-vaxxers, too.


The Catholic Bishop of Fulda, Michael Gerber, said that the effect of the pandemic seems to be in everyone's pores and deviated into some lateral thinking, "Who has what access to what resources in our world? What interests and power games are involved?". But then he returned, renewing his call for vaccination. "Those who travel in the cold fog without appropriate clothing endanger their own health, and those who drive without headlights also endanger others, " Gerber stressed. He continued, "Preventive, protective measures and, in particular, vaccination could be understood as an act of gratitude to God. After all, he gave us the mind to investigate causes and avert dangers," In the end, Gerber emphasized: "Trusting in God does not simply replace trusting in medicine." What a statement.

Is Neil deGrasse Tyson Destroying America's Christmas Magic?

My loyal readers know that I admire astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. However, on Christmas Eve, he seemed to have gone too far with his country fellows: 

Admittedly, for most Europeans, red-dressed Santas*, sleighs with jingle bells, and red-nose reindeer have little significance (Stellenwert).

*We have our St. Nikolaus on December 6

An American reader noted that the timing was horrible, "This is why people don't like atheists. You post this on Christmas Eve?"

"I like that you give us the physics, but maybe, just once in a while, you should stop for the holiday magic," wrote another.

 

Tyson doubled on Christmas Day on zoology and gender madness, "Santa's reindeer, which all sports antlers, are therefore all female, which means Rudolf has been misgendered."

A reader commented, "Ruining Christmas one tweet at a time." Another wrote, "They also can't fly, but you go ahead and take the joy out of everything on Christmas Eve if it makes you happy."

Sorry, I still like the guy.

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For Unto Us a Child Is Born

Every year around Christmas, Der Spiegel takes up and treats "religious" topics provocatively.

©Der Spiegel

Although the picture looks like such, this year's text reads conciliatory. It is inspired by a prophecy in the Old Testament, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).

Der Spiegel writes: Children are hope, are the future, nothing has changed in two millennia. Announcements always sparkle with confidence and vital energy because every newborn fulfills the human longing for departure, new opportunities, and the future.

This ray of hope is omnipresent, e.g., in a song by Johnny Mathis:

A ray of hope flickers in the sky
A tiny star lights way up high
All across the land, dawns a brand new morn
This comes to pass when a child is born…

Der Spiegel continues The child born today, like all children before it, will become acquainted with an irresolvable contradiction of life: the future will always be "a fog of the uncertain and the unknowable," as Hannah Arendt wrote in 1958, unpredictable on both a small and a large scale, and yet man/women remains compelled to continually prepare for it.

Who doesn't remember Doris Day when she sang:

Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be

Then Der Spiegel harps on Germany's present and "possible" future political, economic, and social situation. Read for yourself.

Hark, they are coming (Seen on Facebook)

Let me finish with the final two paragraphs of the Der Spiegel article:

Hannah Arendt ended the chapter of her book, "That one may have confidence in the world, and that one may hope for the world is perhaps nowhere more succinctly and beautifully expressed than in the words with which the Christmas oratorios proclaim 'the glad tidings': 'Unto us, a child is born.'"

It brings the assurance that life goes on. There is always a future, there must be hope, and the possibility of salvation is self-evident.

The fifth candle

I wish all my faithful and occasional readers a

Merry Christmas

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A Foggy Day in Freiburg Town,

didn't have me low and down last Saturday. On the contrary, Red Baron possibly was the oldest demonstrator supporting the vaccination against Covid-19.

You are NOT Freiburg.
Mask on, Nazis out.
Your right-wing stupidity ends with our health.
Queer thinking instead of lateral thinking.

Like last time, to avoid leaving the field to the anti-vaxxers, Sebastian Müller had called for a counter-demonstration at the square of the Old Synagogue. 

Again we started our rally at 1:30 p.m., they at 2 p.m., again we were kept separated by a cordon of anti-riot police, and again we were the minority, i.e., 500 to 2500.

Blathering can kill !!!

We had a prominent supporter: Ulrich von Kirchbach, Freiburg's social and cultural affairs mayor, who spoke to the "crowd."

By now, we all know the arguments of the anti-vaxxers. An analysis says 22 percent think the virus is not worse than the flu. 43 percent find the media coverage "highly exaggerated." A third even agrees with the statement that there are "secret organizations" that "have a great influence on political decisions during the Corona crisis." 

 There are supposed freedom fighters like the Vice President of the Bundestag and leading member of the Liberals, Wolfgang Kubicki. He is mobilizing against the introduction of universal obligatory vaccination. Recently he said, "Many supporters of obligatory vaccination seem to be concerned with revenge and retribution." Kubicki ein Querdenker; I shake my head. 

 In Freiburg, the anti-vaxxers had the "Gadsden Flag" on display. From the Internet, I learned that the flag is used by right-wing extremists in the United States. The young man wearing such a flag explained that it is a sign against "Big Government," for distrust of the state is essential. 

A speaker stirred up the demonstrators from the stage: "We are the fifth wave," she shouted. 

©ZDF

Thinking of Omicron, I fear she might be correct; although the infection rate is still decreasing in Germany, while in Denmark and the UK, the infections are already driven by this so-called escape mutant, i.e., subverting the protection given by vaccination.

 Some people think our health experts paint an epidemic emergency on the wall. In contrast, others claim that Germany will get lost in the next wave or, more dramatically, will run into a veritable Omicron wall. The Germans and their wall. 

 Here are some slogans from our camp I took last Saturday:

I do not see my rights limited or threatened.
I see myself threatened by rights and limited (persons).

I prefer to believe the wrong scientists
than lunatics who believe they are scientists.

Freedom consists primarily not of privileges but of duties.
Albert Camus
 ... and this duty is called: Go get vaccinated.

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