April, 2004 - Nr. 4
Dear Mom
Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be flying in from good old Germany! Hope you turned on the sun and the grass is growing. I do not think I can cope with winter. It has been rather nice over here, you know!
After my last letter to you I realized that I missed going to concerts and the opera and so I took out time to do just that. What difference music makes. Sitting back, listening to some fine artists interpret some old music puts a whole lot of things into proper perspective. Problems do not appear as urgent and pressing, and what is more is the realization that these perceived problems are as old as Methuselah. Nothing much has changed in the nature of humans. We think much the same as we always have; we only employ different methods to achieve our objectives. I also realized that there always have been the barracudas of a trade and the little pretty fish that get swallowed up. Now that there are many more peoples there obviously also are many more barracudas, alas in many sizes, some the volume of sharks, with equal veracity.
You mentioned that another deli bit the bullet because the rent simply got too high. Now the owner sits on the property without a tenant. Strange arithmetic!
O, by the way, Germany has joined the modern age. The Bundestag can now be followed on the Internet! Just go to www.bundestag.de and you get pretty good information on what is being done. I just wish that the folks in Europe would protect heir computers better with antivirus software.
And have you heard what they want to do with Microsoft in Europe? Isn’t it a joke? In an appeal they will loose it, I am pretty sure, just like they lost it in North America. All this posturing just to do what? Introduce us to more policing, observations, and control.
I don’t even feel like reading anything other than the Feuilleton in the papers and the Art and Entertainment sections, book reviews and the like. Everything else is bad news, or so it appears often to me.
Did you follow the Ice-skating World Championships in Dortmund? I still think it is a nice sport… As I write this, a Canadian is making a fool of himself by disrupting the proceedings. Shameful, I must say… At least he was not violent!
I also hear Toller Cranston was especially honoured for his contributions and creativity to/with the sport. Remember how you used to say: "Er ist toll, toller, am tollsten, er ist Cranston!"
Well, I must run, have a report for a client to complete. And I promise to bring loads of that fake green grass you like so much. Perhaps I even find some of those special Easter eggs you prefer too!
Until then!
Martin
