June 2012
6 posts
1 tag
Berlin: The Self-Denying Centre of the Universe
Berlin
There is a sense, as I stroll down the Wilhelmstrasse and pass through the TV vans corralled behind the Bundestag offices awaiting the next move of Chancellor Angela Merkel, that Berlin has transformed itself from the eye of the hurricane into the centre of the world.
You don’t hear about Brussels any more – the nominal European capital has been driven into the inside pages, its officials...
1 tag
Germany's Euro-Crisis Dilemma: A Generation That...
Berlin
While other European capitals are full of angry protesters, in the sweltering German streets this week you’ll see crowds of young men draped in the flag and young women painted with its black, red and gold stripes, gleefully singing the national anthem.
The word “Europe” may inspire fear, rage or defensive anxiety elsewhere on the continent these days, but for a great many young Germans,...
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Why Winning the 1812 War Was the Worst Thing to...
My grandmother’s grandmother was in her bedclothes one night when the Americans burst in.
“Twelve of them came down to us in the middle of the night demanding arms and they had each suspended to their sides swords and rifles,” she wrote of the fearful moment when she and her Welsh-born barrister husband became combatants.
Read the full essay in The Globe and Mail
So begins my essay on the...
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The $2-Trillion Reason Why Germans Buy the Myth of...
Berlin
When primary-school teacher Vanessa Kuhn-Baumann opens her pay statement every month, she thinks dark thoughts about Spain and Greece. Despite the prosperity of her country, her bank statements and tax returns feel like a constant reminder of the price of European solidarity and economic unity.
Like all Germans, Ms. Kuhn-Baumann has a 5.5 per cent “solidarity surcharge” on top of her...
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Racial Equality Looks Different From Behind Bars
London
Of the woes befalling the United States, the one that poisoned the country for two centuries appears to be on the wane. There is a black President. There is a large and growing black middle class. And, after almost 50 years of legal equality, the economic, educational and political experiences of the 12 per cent of Americans who are descendants of slaves are converging with the rest of the...
1 tag
How Genetically Modified Food Became a Progressive...
London
A perfect sunny day in England, a lovely corner of the Hertfordshire countryside, a quiet laneway across from the cricket club – what better place for a violent act of anti-technological dissent? That was the scene last Sunday in the village of Harpenden, where 200 protesters from across Europe had arrived with plans to “decontaminate” or otherwise destroy a field of experimental...
