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Western Wayne News: More on the Richmond Fire

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Per the Western Wayne News:

“It’s his fault.”

Mayor Dave Snow blames Seth Smith, owner of Cornerstone Trading Group LLC, for hazardous conditions at a three-property complex that burned for more than three days last week. Smith stored tons of plastics in six buildings that total nearly 255,000 square feet on the 13.8-acre complex.

The article indicates that Smith and Cornerstone ignored clean up orders. The city lacked the resources to undertake a multi-million dollar clean up on its own.

The City had at least begun the process of securing an EPA grant to clean the place up and had entered into an agreement whereby Smith, as owner of the plastics, would remove the plastics and other materials and sell them.

“This was a multi-million-dollar undertaking, and for a city government to redirect millions of dollars away from city services and into cleaning up someone else’s mess is not a precedent we should ever set,” [Mayor] Snow said. “He was made very aware through various processes that this is his mess. He has a court order, and he disregarded these orders. He left the mess in place and everyone’s worst fears came to light, and he is responsible for this.”

Cost was just one factor in a possible city cleanup. The scope of clearing away the plastics would be incredibly large, beyond city capability; the plastics need a place or places for disposal, something Smith could provide with his overseas buyers; and First Bank Richmond had a security interest on the plastics inventory as loan collateral.

“We would have been taking materials technically owned by the bank,” [City Attorney] Sickmann said, adding there was a process with the bank to try and resolve the issue.

House Passes SB 486 stripping teachers of discussion rights with school administration

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Yesterday, the House passed, by a vote of 63-46, SB 486 which contains, among other things, a provision that removes the requirement that school administration discuss certain items with teachers.The mandatory discussion provision has been in place, I am told, since the 1970s and was adopted as a way to head off strikes. (I’m vaguely remembering a strike in 1977 or 1978 that kept us out of school in Richmond for some period of time. I wonder if the two things are connected.) Current law provides at IC 20-29-6-7:

Sec. 7. A school employer shall discuss with the exclusive representative of certificated employees the following items:

(1) Curriculum development and revision.

(2) Selection of curricular materials.

(3) Teaching methods.

(4) Hiring, evaluation, promotion, demotion, transfer, assignment, and retention of certificated employees.

(5) Student discipline.

(6) Expulsion or supervision of students.

(7) Pupil/teacher ratio.

(8) Class size or budget appropriations.

(9) Safety issues for students and employees in the workplace, except those items required to be kept confidential by state or federal law.

(10) Hours.

(11) Funding for a plan for a remediation program for any subset of students enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12.

(12) The following nonbargainable items under IC 20-43-10-3.5:

(A) Teacher appreciation grants.

(B) Individual teacher appreciation grant stipends to teachers.

(C) Additions to base salary based on teacher appreciation grant stipends.

(13) The pre-evaluation planning session required under IC 20-28-11.5-4.

(14) The superintendent’s report to the governing body concerning staff performance evaluations required under IC 20-28-11.5-9.

(15) A teacher performance model.

(16) The use of adjunct teachers permitted under IC 20-28-5-27.

The new law would strip the requirement that a school discuss the matters at all. It would now say that the school employer may conduct discussions and, furthermore, may do it with a non-representative group of teachers behind closed doors if it so chooses. That last part gives away the game. Cherry pick your teachers, hot box them, and/or play them off against each other to get the answers you want.

School privatization has three main goals: subsidize religious education, weaken teacher’s unions, and divert public funds to private interests. This isn’t privatization, but it’s clearly in support of goal #2. Requiring discussion with someone who represents teachers as a group has been in place for 40+ years. Having teacher representatives and administrators talk regularly is a good way to make sure that issues don’t turn into problems and that small problems don’t turn into big problems. During my stint on the West Lafayette school board, I was one of the board representatives to a discussion group that met once a month. It was not uncommon for those discussions to, among other things, allow administrators to float plans they had and to tweak those plans in a way that helped teachers do their jobs better.

This is anti-teacher, union busting; plain and simple.

Berlin Day 5: Trip to Barsinghausen

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The Berlin Series:

Berlin Day 5 (March 15, 2023)

March 15 took us out of Berlin. When she was in high school, Amy became friends with a German exchange student. I had heard about him from time to time over the years, but mainly I remembered that he really liked Taco Bell. Amy gave him rides to and from school with Taco Bell stops en route. Sometime in 1996 or thereabouts, Amy took a trip to Germany and visited. After that, I don’t think there was a great deal of contact over the years. But, we were going to be in Germany, so she reached out and made plans to visit him in Barsinghausen, a village close to Hanover.

A street in Barsinghausen.

Our train didn’t leave until a little later, so we slept in before getting breakfast at a restaurant called Ewig Freunde. It was a little fancy for my breakfast tastes, but not bad. The server was friendly. Honestly, for all I like about Europe, I think breakfast is something the U.S. tends to do a little better. Properly fortified, we made our way to the central train station. “Hauptbahnhof” (main train station) was one of the few German terms I actually picked up during our trip. Once again, train travel is something that America just doesn’t do very well. We covered the approximately 170 miles from Berlin to Barsinghausen in a couple of hours. I can’t imagine trying to get from Lafayette to, say, St. Louis, via public transport without a lot more time, hassle, and expense. Our trip was smooth and uneventful. Got on the train, settled in a bit, wandered up to the restaurant car, grabbed a couple of beers, and enjoyed the ride.

Amy’s friend picked us up at the station which was less than a mile from his house. I like the tourist places, but just hanging out with some new people was a nice change of pace. Amy delivered a gift of Girl Scout Cookies by way of greeting. She had spent a good bit of time trying to think of something that was portable, American, not easily available in Germany, and that our hosts (and their kids) would enjoy. Hit the nail on the head, I thought.

The friend’s wife’s native language is Russian and German is her second language. She was worried about her English, but it was fantastic. Their seven year old, who doesn’t speak any English, quickly adopted Cole and wrangled him into playing chess, some kind of train building set, and video games. Cole took four or five years of German in high school. He’s not at all fluent, but he knows a fair bit. Still, whenever he’d start a conversation in German, the kind and/or efficient German listener would immediately shift to English. Here was an audience who wasn’t going to short-circuit Cole’s German! Cole said there was a fair amount he didn’t understand, but they both seemed to communicate well; and it was fun to watch. There is some legitimate criticism about Americans not learning other languages. But, in fairness, it’s a whole different dynamic when you live in a country the size of a continent where you are unlikely to encounter very many people who speak other languages and in a world where your language has become one of the defaults. Learning new languages simply doesn’t have the same utility for most Americans as it often does for people living in other places. If people in Ohio spoke a different language, I might be apt to pick up a little Buckeye because it would be useful.

The Masson kids establishing dominance.

After hanging out a bit, chatting, and enjoying some baked goods, we took a walk around the neighborhood and paused for a good while at the local soccer field. Cole and Harper mostly took on the seven year old who stood in goal. The kid had some good keeper instincts! Just the way he’d go to ground for the ball was a lot more fluid and natural than what I ever saw in my rec soccer kids, particularly at that age. My guess is that’s the influence of starting the sport early and having it on TV in a big way. Kids in the U.S. probably have a more intuitive grasp of some of our big sports just from it permeating the culture. There was one moment where the ball kind of got away from Cole and he ripped a hard shot into the top of the net. If it had been a little lower, there might have been injuries. Rather than tragic, it ended up being funny. Cole big footing the seven year old to show dominance.

Beer, glorious beer. So frosty and delicious!

After our walk, it was time for dinner. They made us some spectacular goulash with German noodles. This was probably my favorite meal of the week. Amy’s friend had also laid in a nice selection of beer. I don’t think that’s normally what he had around the house, but they were putting on the dog for us as guests; which was really kind of them. He sent us home with a few of the beers which were nice to have at the Airbnb. After some dessert and a little more conversation, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the train station. Once again, the public transport was great. We navigated a combination of inter-city train, S-bahn, and tram, returning to the apartment at about 1 a.m. Without a lot of tourist stops, there maybe wasn’t as much to write about, but getting to visit with real people in a different country is a rare experience for us, and I’m glad we were able to do it.

Next time: We visit the Tempelhof Airport and our flight home disappears.

Hillsdale Official Holds Educators in Low Regard; Tries to Take Root in Pike Township

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This is from last year, but I kept thinking about it and only had it up on Facebook. I don’t want to rely on social media for things I might want for posterity, so I’m throwing up a quick blog post. This is relevant because Pike Township in Marion County is fighting a Hillsdale charter school that Carmel successfully excluded.

“Teachers are dumb. Give us some tax money and let us teach your kids.”

Last summer, in Tennessee, video surfaced of Hillsdale’s president showing the contempt he has for teachers.  From the article:

Among Arnn’s provocative remarks:

  • “The teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”
  • “They are taught that they are going to go and do something to those kids…. Do they ever talk about anything except what they are going to do to these kids?”
  • “In colleges, what you hire now is administrators…. Now, because they are appointing all these diversity officers, what are their degrees in? Education. It’s easy. You don’t have to know anything.”
  • “The philosophic understanding at the heart of modern education is enslavement…. They’re messing with people’s children, and they feel entitled to do anything to them.”
  • “You will see how education destroys generations of people. It’s devastating. It’s like the plague.”
  • “Here’s a key thing that we’re going to try to do. We are going to try to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.”

The article also said Arnn said “teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

The “Valor” charter school trying to take root in Pike Township is a Hillsdale affiliate.

Berlin Day 4: Museum Island, River Cruise, and the Ice Bar

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The Berlin Series:

Berlin Day 4 (March 14, 2023)

March 14 was a relatively more leisurely day than the previous several days. We’d been going pretty hard, so that was fine. We slept in a little, had our meager breakfast of yogurt and leftover snacks, and made our way to Museum Island. It’s an island in the River Spree in the central part of the city with six museums: Altes (Old), Neues (New), Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery), Bode, Pergamon, and Humboldt Forum. There’s no way to cover it all in one go, so we settled – somewhat arbitrarily – on the Pergamon and the Neues Museums.

Harper between some pilfered lions.

The Pergamon contains artifacts obtained during a period of time when the looting of other people’s stuff by European powers was particularly vigorous. I’m sure someone has done a study and offered social commentary on this, so I’m perfectly prepared to be wrong, but I think the acquisitiveness in this area was a combination of the rise of an academic-scientific mindset in the West, Germany looking for its place in the sun, and a decline in the Ottoman Empire. I kept thinking of the time and place where Raiders of the Lost Ark was set – although, a lot of the acquisition at the Pergamon would have been pre-Nazi. The Market Gate of Miletus and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon were especially striking to me. The Ishtar Gate was excavated between 1904 and 1914 and put on in display around 1918. It was apparently shipped out of the Middle East more or less in secret and its reconstruction was one of the more complicated architectural reconstructions in archaeological history.

Gates of Ishtar. “Telling the truth can be dangerous business.” (There is maybe one person who will get that reference.)

Miletus was a Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia that was eventually abandoned (in the 1400s?) when its harbor silted up. The Market Gate was built around 200 AD and destroyed about 800 years later. The Germans excavated it at the beginning of the 20th century and shipped it up to Berlin where the fragments they recovered were mixed with new construction to create the display at the Pergamon.

Market Gate of Miletus

After making our way through the Pergamon, we had lunch at the Cu29, a restaurant at the museum complex. It was a little pricey, but the beers were tall, and the food was good. (I went with more currywurst). Cole joined me in having a pilsner. College kids, am I right? The most entertaining part was a robot waiter with a cat display for a face. It would periodically declare, “meow.” A cat seems like a really bad choice for a waiter though. They could have added some realism by programming it to arbitrarily go up to people and knock stuff off their tables.

Our Robot Cat Waiter

Our second museum for the day was the Neues. The museum is “new” only because the Altes was built thirty years earlier. Its main draw is its Egyptian artifacts. The star attraction is the bust of Nefertiti of which they’re pretty serious about not allowing guests to take pictures. It’s an image I’d seen in any number of history books over the years. Nefertiti was the wife or consort of Akhenaten who was significant in trying to initiate a monotheistic religion around the sun god Aten. The bust on display is believed to have been created about 3,300 years ago. Which is, I don’t need to tell you, a long time ago.

We cut our visit to the Neues a little short because we had a river cruise scheduled. While the weather had been mostly decent all day, the sun even gracing us a couple of times, it started to turn ugly about the time our cruise was starting. Cold, heavy rain. It’s a cruise up and back along the River Spree, looking at the historic district of Berlin. The best way to enjoy the tour would have been on top of the boat where the views were better. But, the below decks had plenty of seats and tables with windows and a little cafe/bar.

Actually, the sequence of events was that we settled into the below deck table, got some beers (Berliner Kindl Pils), and enjoyed ourselves for a bit. However, enough people were up top, and the views were limited enough out the windows below, that we were briefly lured upstairs. We couldn’t have been up there more than two minutes before the rain really started to let loose. We went back downstairs and reclaimed our table. The top deck was closed for the remainder of the tour. We didn’t miss a great deal because we’d seen a lot of what there was to see on the river cruise during our previous two days in town.

Ridin’ the Storm Out

While we were there, we encountered another family from Indiana. Hoosiers generally travel pretty well. However, despite Cole and I wearing IU gear as Hooser beacons non-stop the whole week, I think that was the only Indiana encounter we had while we were in Berlin. (A couple of times when people would ask where we were from, I’d say something like “Indiana – United States. It’s near Chicago.” I don’t know how familiar anyone would necessarily be with the geography of the United States, but Chicago is a pretty solid reference point).

When the cruise let out, the weather was really bad. It was the first time we had to break out the umbrellas. But the wind was whipping and the temperature was getting close to the freezing point. Dinner wasn’t for another couple of hours. There was an “ice bar” not too far away. We had intended to go there after dinner, but walking anywhere else at that point seemed like a bad idea.

Cole and Harper at the Ice Bar

The Berlin Ice Bar is a cheesy, touristy kind of thing, but it was a lot of fun. You wait in a regular bar until your group is up, then they give you coats and gloves and take you into a cold room, decorated in an arctic theme, and serve you drinks in a glass made of ice. During the wait, the kids and I all got “Desperado” beer, a Mexican beer with a tequila flavoring. Add a lime to it, and it’s a sweet, tasty drink. Harper especially liked that one. In the ice bar, two drinks came as part of the package. You could get beers or a variety of shots. One issue was that, because you were getting a glass made of ice, you only got one. So, if you wanted a beer and a shot, you had to get the beer first – because your beer wasn’t going to fit into a shot glass. I’m not sure exactly what my rationale was, but for my second drink, I got a shot of vodka. I haven’t had a shot of vodka in probably a decade, and I don’t especially like it (it’ll probably be another decade before my next one), but something about the icy set up made me think it was appropriate. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t too terrible.

Sporting the IU gear everywhere we went.

We cut the ice bar maybe a little shorter than we would have otherwise because we had dinner reservations at YOSOY, a Spanish tapas restaurant. Fortunately, by the time we got out of the ice bar, the weather had cleared up so that we didn’t need our umbrellas and had a pleasant walk. The food was decent. I kind of liked the energy of the place – fairly tight quarters with a lot of people. But if I had to choose a least favorite dinner on the trip, that was probably it. On our way home, we swung by the Ampelmann Shop. The Ampelmänchen is “the stop light man.” In addition to being cute on his own, he’s notable for being one of the relatively few East German cultural things that the West Germans adopted when the country reunified. There’s a shop devoted to trinkets with him on there, and we picked up – among other things – a Christmas ornament. Amy had the excellent inspiration several trips ago to get ornaments while we travel. That way, we can remember our various trips when we decorate the tree.

We ended the day by returning home and watching TV. We have a couple of shows that we started watching as a family. With Cole away at college, we have to wait until we’re reunited to catch up on episodes. In this case, we had a final episode of “Mythic Quest” to watch. And, because season 3 of Ted Lasso was premiering the next day, we also re-watched the last episode from season 2. (We didn’t end up watching any of season 3 on our trip.) Honestly, as much fun as I had doing all the stuff, I enjoyed just hanging out and watching TV with the whole family as much as any of the other stuff.

Next time: Trip to Barsinghausen to see Amy’s friend from high school.

2019 Hearing on Richmond Unsafe Building is Prescient

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Richmond had a big fire yesterday at 358 NW F Street that has required evacuation orders as various kinds of plastic are burning.

I don’t pretend to know a lot about the situation, but I’m looking at the transcript of a 2019 unsafe building hearing, and it looks like they saw a lot of the risk. My understanding is that, in the interim, the property was sold at tax sale and the City acquired the property from the County. The City or the previous owner may have done work to mitigate some of the hazards since 2019, but clearly some (or all) of the risk remained!

From the 2019 transcript:

MR. GARDNER: So on the properties that’s listed (inaudible) today, they’ve done an incident pre-plan from the fire department’s perspective on resources needed.· Some of our concerns on these is access in and around the structures.· Let me back up here so you understand what I’m talking about. So in getting access around to the rear parts of the structure, this right here is a railroad track, which renders it impossible just about to come in the backside here.· This is Northwest F Street.· From this aerial photograph, there’s no access to the sides of the building.· And this is continued through all the properties. We look at fire flow, fully involved, gallons per minute needed, resources needed, water available, evacuation areas, depending on wind direction.· It’s a multi-agency possibility with, you know, the health department, emergency management, local departments outside the City of Richmond.· Looking at toxins and stuff like that. And the way we do this is by this and also in recent history of incidents throughout the country or around the world.· And in the  recent years — the past couple years, there’s been a fire at a storage recycling facility in Australia that had a lengthy fire ground operation upwards to close to two weeks of that. There was one in Parkersburg, West Virginia, that lasted for over eight days.· The one in Australia was June this year. We look at the after-effects and we look at runoff of contaminated water from the suppression efforts.· And then we also look at the lack of fire protection and fire detection.

In a situation like this with the 358 building, it was designed and intended with a suppression system and a detection system.· Those work to get ahead of the game if a fire did occur. With no detection system, that’s a delay in notification, meaning that it could possibly be through the roof, through the windows, or whatever before somebody called it in.· A suppression system is designed to suppress the fire and slow the spread of fire once detected.· So, therefore, with no detection system, we don’t have that or fire protection system and it allows that fire to grow more rapidly than (inaudible).

MR. HEETER:· So there’s nothing to contain it and then you don’t find out about it  very quickly, it sounds like?

MR. GARDNER:· Right.·

…

·MR. HEETER:· Are there other properties that are around it that you would consider in danger in that case?· I mean, it’s spreading, you know, to businesses or other properties?

MR. GARDNER:· Anything in the immediate area.· It’s weather-dependent, also.· You know, wind travel, wind speed, you know, that plays into it.· If it’s contained in the building or it’s on the lot, you know, all of that, it’s all taken into effect.· And depending on the size of the fire (inaudible) then would determine what we determine would be an immediate threat.

…

MR. JORDAN:· 358 is a Type 1 structure that’s been used as a business without any utilities.· I mean, the sprinkler system is down.· I mean, it’s got —

MR. HEETER:· That’s the one with the fire suppression system — that’s been gutted?

MR. JORDAN:· It has.· And, you know, by the rules of the commission, you know, for him to occupy that building, he should have electric power.


MR. HEETER:· It doesn’t have power at all?

MR. JORDAN:· It doesn’t have — any electric.· The sprinkler system should be up and running.· All the emergency — lighting should be on.

MR. HEETER:· It’s a safety issue for  the community, not just the neighborhood,

Again, that’s all from a hearing on September 24, 2019. (It was later filed as an exhibit in a 2019 case challenging the orders of the City’s Unsafe Building Commission.) My understanding is that the owner of the recycling operations had maybe acquired the property from an outfit called Hoffco Comet, which made lawn and garden equipment. Back in 2009-2010, they lost John Deere as a customer and shut their doors. According to information in the hearing transcript, they (or whoever owned the building at the time) had salvaged the copper in the building, including the sprinkler systems before abandoning the structure.

Berlin Day 3: Food Tour, East Side Gallery, and the Hasselhoff “Museum”

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The Berlin Series:

Berlin Day 3 (March 13, 2023)

March 13 was Monday which meant that stores were open. Markets are mostly closed on Sundays. We felt like we should have some supplies for the Airbnb where we were staying, so Amy and I went out to forage before the kids woke up. We had a little success, but not much. The places that were close (at least the ones we managed to identify) were not very big. It was a damp, cool morning, but even so, taking a stroll in a new place is always interesting. I felt like there was a sort of uniformity to the buildings in the area where we were staying: lots of 5-6 story buildings packed together in grids. The businesses were varied, but if there was variation in the architecture, it didn’t jump out at me.

Behold the döner kebab!

We had a food tour scheduled for lunchtime. The ones we did in Lisbon and Porto last year were really fun ways to get someone local to tell you about the city and, obviously, the food. I think I prefer dinner to lunch, but the dinner options had been booked by the time we scheduled ours. We rousted the kids, fed them some of the yogurt we’d managed to scavenge, and made our way to the Mitte area of Berlin. The meeting place was on the Friedrichs Bridge. We were to look for the woman with an orange umbrella. Nobody with that description was on the bridge. A guy with a fantastic mustache asked if we were there for the tour. He was another guest scheduled to be with the group, and we were all happy to be in the right place. Mel and his wife were from Detroit and had extended their trip to Europe another day to visit Berlin. A couple from Salt Lake City was also on the bridge and were part of our group. After not too long, the lady with the umbrella showed up and apologized for being late. Our guide was Donya? She was a student from Syria who had been doing this for about three months.

Another couple, Bernie and Crystal, were the last to arrive. Their taxi driver had gotten lost. An exchange made it clear that Mel recognized Bernie but I was far enough away from them that I couldn’t tell how or why. Later on, Bernie mentioned something about becoming “involved in professional athletics” when he was younger. That was enough for me to just ask him directly what sort of athletics. Turns out Bernie was Bernie Williams, all-star Yankee center-fielder who, among other things, holds the Major League Baseball post-season record for RBIs. As it happens, Bernie is also a professionally trained jazz guitarist. A musician friend described him as “the real deal,” and not just “good for a former athlete.” Crystal runs an outfit called Gator Cases which makes guitar cases, cases for other types of instruments, and various music accessories.  So, despite hanging out with a baseball legend, our conversation focused a lot more on music and band. It was fun watching Cole drinking beers and talking music school and composition with these folks.

Food tours in foreign cities are the way to go. The don’t always include world-famous baseball players; but sometimes they do!

I didn’t note the name of the first restaurant we went to, but we had döner kebabs, and if I’m reading the geotagging on my pictures correctly, the place was called Mustafa Demir’s Gemuse Kebap. And it was fantastic. Aside from the goulash at Amy’s friend’s house, it was the best thing I ate all week. Our guide told us that these döner kebabs were created by Turkish immigrants who adapted traditional kebabs to German sensibilities by putting them into a pita that could be eaten more efficiently. If I have a complaint about the tour, it was that not much thought was given to water or other drinks to accompany the sandwich. (One of my few complaints about Europe in general is that water doesn’t generally accompany meals in restaurants unless you pay for the fancy bottled stuff.)

On our way to the next stop, our guide took us through Haus Schwarzenberg, an alley bursting with street art and murals. This was Harper’s favorite spot on the trip. Per the Atlas Obscura entry on the site, “Since street art is mercurial and chaotic by its very nature, the art on display in the alley next to Haus Schwarzenberg changes on an almost weekly basis, with new pieces being painted on, papered over, added to, and repurposed in the constantly evolving collage that washes over this little urban oasis. Famous street artists like El Bocho, Miss Van, Stinkfish, Otto Schade, and more have been known to add to the churn. The alley also features a famous painting of Anne Frank by Jimmy C that remains intact and untouched.”

Next up was currywurst at Curry 61. Don’t get me wrong, this is my kind of food. But, at the end of the day, it was more or less hotdogs in spicy ketchup. There wasn’t much space inside the restaurant, and we kind of crowded around a stand up table already occupied two or three patrons. One woman kept shaking her head as if annoyed by us, but it’s possible she just had a tic. We washed down the currywurst with a berliner from Samy’s Berliner Donuts. It was good, but by this time we were getting pretty full and thirsty. So, the next stop was notable not so much for the food as the wine. I believe the place was Weihanstephaner and the food was something like fancy mac & cheese. Judging by the amount of food left behind, that was probably the least favorite stop for the group.

The good news is that we all had pretty full stomachs for the beer tasting that came next at Das Lemke. Amy signed us up for the upgraded drinks package which, in retrospect, wasn’t really necessary for Harper. It came with flights of beer: a bohemian pilsner, the original (a Vienna style lager), a weizen, a pale ale, an IPA, and a berliner weisse. I’m not snobby about my beer by any means, but I don’t much care for wheat beers. Being a dutiful child who eats his vegetables first, I cleared out the berlinerweisse and the weizen so I could focus on the other beers. Cole cleared his away pretty readily, and we both helped out a bit with Amy and Harper’s. But, it was early afternoon, and we had stuff to do; so we were not members of the clean plate club – or clean pilsner club, I guess. It was here that the kids spent a good amount of time talking to Bernie and Crystal which, as I mentioned, made for fun listening.

Harper at the East Side Gallery. This might be my favorite picture from the vacation.

We mentioned that our next stop after the food tour was the East Side Gallery. Bernie and Crystal wanted to see that spot and were not yet familiar with the public transport system. They asked if they could follow us. “I mean … sure. But, please join us!” So they did. The Gallery is a series of murals on the longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall. “In the spring of 1990, after the opening of the Berlin Wall, this section was painted by 118 artists from 21 countries. The artists commented on the political changes of 1989/90 in a good hundred paintings on the side of the Wall that was formerly facing East Berlin. Due to urban development measures, it is no longer completely preserved, and instead of the originals from then, only the replicas from 2009 exist today.” One of the most famous is “My God, Help Me to Survive this Deadly Love” which depicts former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev kissing Erich Honecker, an East German leader. The whole site is pretty remarkable, capturing the spirit of 1990 when the Wall came down.

Sunset on the Spree

Toward the end of our tour of the murals, we parted ways with Bernie & Crystal, and took it easy, looking out over the River Spree. We caught the tail end of some singers performing on the river walk and the sunset. Just beyond the East Side Gallery was the Wall Museum which provides some good history of the rise and fall of the wall. I think I liked it especially for its video of a live Pink Floyd performance of “the Wall” on July 21, 1990 at Potzdamer Platz.

Burgermeister!

Dinner was at a Burgermeister, and it was fantastic. A terrific burger with beers sold out of a shack under an elevated railway bridge. My kind of place! We ate outside, standing up at a table. It’s no secret that I like lowbrow places, and this fit the bill. Properly fed, we headed for the last stop of the evening: the David Hasselhoff Museum. Trouble was, about twenty minutes into our subway journey to the destination, I realized I’d left my backpack under the table at the Burgermeister. So, we headed back but without a ton of hope. The place had been pretty busy, and there was no reason for a person not to walk off with it. There was nothing in the pack that  I couldn’t live without, but we’d miss the umbrellas and a hat I had in there. The biggest loss probably would have been my traveler’s notebook where I keep my notes for these trips along with keepsakes like tickets and a little bit of money. When we got back, there was nothing under the table. I asked a guy at the window of the shack, but his English wasn’t very good (and my German is non-existent.) But his face brightened when I made the gesture for putting on a backpack. Sure enough, someone had turned it in! No harm, no foul. In fact, all of our moods were brightened by the unexpected victory.

My family gathers around the Hoff!

Retracing our steps, we made our way back toward the Hasselhoff Museum. Calling it a “museum” is overstating things in a big way. It’s half of a hallway in the basement of the Circus Hostel – not to be confused, like we did, with the Circus Hotel across the street. The Atlas Obscura entry on the site explains, “What started as a perhaps tongue-in-cheek shrine to the former Baywatch and Knight Rider star has evolved into a full-blown one man museum celebrating the legend, his music and acting career, and of course his longstanding love affair with the once-divided city.” Even if it’s small, it’s mighty. It has a mural of the Hoff and some memorabilia. Hostel management has asked that the street outside be named David-Hasselhoff-Strasse.  Probably my favorite display was a magazine with a bold cover asking “Did David Hasselhoff end the Cold War? Facts You Need To Know: HE DID.”

Properly educated, we called it a night and headed home.

My own picture with the man who ended the Cold War.

Next time: Museum Island, a River Cruise, and the Ice Bar.

Gov. Holcomb signs SB 480 prohibiting gender affirming care; ACLU immediately files suit

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Government Ban on Gender Affirming Care Going to Court

I have written a couple of prior posts about SB 480 which prohibits gender affirming care for transgender minors regardless of their wishes, their parents’ wishes, or medical advice. Proponents would like this to be seen as a bold stance against kids and maybe their parents recklessly mutilating genitals for, I don’t know, fun and profit. But that’s not what is going on. Gender reassignment surgeries on minors aren’t happening in Indiana. As a practical matter, this is primarily about gender related use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Despite knowing that, Gov. Holcomb signed SB 480 into law with a press release leading off with a statement about “permanent gender-changing surgeries.” I’m not a reflexive Holcomb-hater. I think he’s done a lot of the right things in situations where more radical members of his party wanted him to do the wrong things. Still, I’m very disappointed in this. (Although, as a practical matter, a gubernatorial veto is easily over-ridden by the legislature in Indiana.) This legislation won’t help anyone and it will cause harm to a lot people, including families I know.

Within hours, maybe minutes, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of children who are presently receiving or who will, in the future, need gender preserving care; the children’s parents; and medical professionals who want to provide medically appropriate care but, because of SB 480, will not be permitted to do so. I very much recommend reading the Complaint. Ken Falk and the other lawyers at ACLU-Indiana write a good complaint. (I say this despite having been on the opposite end of a couple of them over the years.)

The introduction reads as follows:

Over the sustained objection and concern of medical professionals, Indiana passed Indiana Senate Enrolled Act 480 (“S.E.A. 480”), effective July 1, 2023, which prohibits transgender minors from receiving what the law labels as “gender transition procedures.” These prohibited interventions are evidence-based and medically necessary medical care essential to the health and well being of transgender minors who are suffering from gender dysphoria, a serious condition that can lead to depression, anxiety and other serious health consequences when untreated. By denying this medically necessary treatment to minors, the State of Indiana has displaced the judgment of parents, doctors, and adolescents with that of the government. In so doing, the State has intruded on the fundamental rights of parents to care for their minor children by consenting to their receipt of doctor-recommended and necessary care and treatment. This violates due process. Additionally, by singling out for prohibition the care related to “gender transition,” the law creates a facial classification based on sex and transgender status, violating the equal protection rights of transgender adolescents. It also violates their bodily integrity and is fundamentally irrational, which violates due process. And, to the extent that it prohibits the provision of essential services that would otherwise be authorized and reimbursed by Medicaid, the law violates the federal requirements of the Medicaid Act and the Affordable Care Act. It also intrudes on the First Amendment rights of doctors and other practitioners.

This law takes away critical health care from a group of Hoosiers, leaving them and their parents in dire circumstances. It is vast government overreach into the decision-making of parents and will cause untold harms to the individuals affected and the practice of medicine in Indiana. It is also unlawful and unconstitutional and should be enjoined both as to plaintiffs and the classes they seek to represent.

I particularly appreciated the discussion of gender dysphoria and the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy. (See generally paragraphs 61 – 90). Puberty blockers delay the onset of puberty and are recommended where the minor’s transgender status “is marked and has been sustained over time” and such treatment is necessary to minimize or prevent the gender dysphoria associated with endogenous puberty. Puberty blockers are reversible. Hormone therapy is a more permanent step and is indicated where gender dysphoria persists and the patient is properly advised of the consequences.

One thing to keep in mind as children, their parents, and medical professionals navigate these situations is that it isn’t a choice between “risk” and “no risk.” Not pursuing gender affirming care where it’s needed has consequences as well including potentially severe gender dysphoria and increased incidents of suicide, self-harm, and other psychological damage. Navigating these questions can be difficult under the best of circumstances and the General Assembly taking options off the table isn’t helping anyone.

Berlin Day 2: Brandenburg Gate-Reichstag-Checkpoint Charlie

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The Berlin Series:

Berlin Day 2 (March 12, 2023)

Airports are beyond time. We made full use of the 7:30 a.m. self-serve breakfast bar.

Amy set her alarm for 5:30 a.m. and we were set for an early start on Sunday morning (March 12 if you’re keeping score). Harper is usually our weakest link at such moments, but she’d slept in her clothes, hadn’t even opened her bag, and got out of bed reasonably easily. Having stayed at the Copenhagen airport Clarion, we were literally right next door. That was super convenient. No trams, no taxis, nothing. Just walk next door and into the terminal. (There was some construction underway or else we wouldn’t have even needed to go outside.) One of the perks of what we call our “fancy pants travel credit card” is lounge access in a lot of airports. The Carlsberg Aviator Lounge in Copenhagen is a good one. (I’d give it a backseat to the lounge in Lisbon, but that one is hard to beat.) Cole took full advantage of the 7:30 a.m. self-serve beer station. I didn’t entirely avoid it myself. Time is just a construct, particularly when you’re dealing with airports and time zones.

An incidental moment I enjoyed at the lounge was what I took to be a grandfather interacting with his grandchildren. Nothing special, I don’t suppose. Just a guy who seemed to be having a great time eating and goofing around with his little grandkids on a trip.

The flight to Berlin from Copenhagen was short and easy. Maybe an hour. A driver picked us up at the airport and, en route, pointed out the Tempelhof Airport. He’d seen a video about it. We were excited because that was on our list of places to go later in the week. We rested for a bit when we got to the Airbnb at Schliemannstraße 17 in Berlin. I’d gone my entire life not knowing what that “ß” meant. Turns out it’s an “eszett” more or less a double “s.” Handy to know, since they’re all over the place in Berlin! The Airbnb was a nice two bedroom set up on the fourth floor. Aside from the broken elevator, the only drawback was a single bathroom. We had no cause to complain since it was clear up front that’s what the place had available. But, it did present a bottleneck at various times during the vacation.

We settled on a Portuguese cafe on the block, Bekarei, as a good place for lunch. The sandwiches were good and, bonus points, they had Super Bock available. (In fact, I’d ordered a Sagres since that’s what they had on display. They only had Super Bock available, would that be “ok?” Of course! When we’d been in Portugal last year, we had settled into being a Super Bock family.)

I, like John Wick and several others, have been to the Brandenburg Gate.

Our first “official” Berlin stop was the Brandenburg Gate. We had purchased the Berlin city card which included basically unlimited public transit for the week. Now we had to figure out how to use it. Google has made this sort of thing so much easier than it probably was in the past. Tell it where you want to go, and you’ll get appropriate combinations of tram, U-bahn, S-bahn, and what have you. The public transport is light years better than anything I’ve seen in the States. We were tourists going to touristy places, so that no doubt helps, but there was transport going everywhere we wanted to go. There wasn’t much waiting around. And everyone was using it. In the U.S., bus routes involve a lot of waiting, and it’s mostly just people who have no other options.

It was no problem at all to figure out the tram and the train that would get us to, if memory serves, our stop was the Unter de Linden station which was right next to the Brandenburg Gate. The Gate, like Berlin, has a complicated history. From connotations of peace to a triumphal symbol of conquest and victory to the site where East faced off against West during the Cold War to a place where an American family can now casually go for a stroll on a Sunday afternoon. It’s a cool looking structure, but often I don’t know what to do when I get to such places. Snap a few pictures, think about the people who had been there before you, and move on, I guess.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Nearby was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which is an impressive installment. It is a large area covered with a grid of concrete slabs on sloping ground. I don’t know how to describe it, but it definitely got me into my head and in a reflective mood as I made my way among the taller slabs that envelope you among the undulating ground levels. As I made my way in no particular direction, I’d see my family members and other people at the site. Those encounters took me briefly out of the reflection before I was dropped right back in. The Reichstag is visible in the skyline above. One thing that impressed me in several parts of Berlin were plaques and whatnot that declared in no uncertain terms that Germany and the Nazis had been beaten and surrendered unconditionally and that they had committed atrocities such as murdering Jews and other groups. My sense was this is an effort to limit – as much as is ever possible – “Lost Cause” and “Stabbed in the Back” narratives from taking root. Failure to deal with “Lost Cause” narratives continues to plague the United States as Southern Whites were allowed to continue believing that their ancestors were engaged in something more defensible than Treason in Defense of Slavery; meanwhile, the “Stabbed in the Back” narrative obviously contributed to fascists taking power in Germany after World War I, pretending that they would have won the war if only Jews and other disfavored groups hadn’t been insufficiently patriotic.

Inside the Reichstag Dome. We’re reflected in the mirror.

Next, Amy had made us reservations for a walk up the Reichstag Dome. The historical enormity of this structure is also hard to articulate. Arson at the site in the 1930s allowed the Nazis to take total control of the State. The War further destroyed the site. The Cold War made its reconstruction, let alone use as a German center of government, improbable. The Wall coming down, German reunification, re-location of government in Berlin, reconstruction of the Reichstag, and construction of the dome are a fairly profound symbol of rebirth. According to the Wikipedia page, “The futuristic and transparent design of the Reichstag dome is intended to symbolize Berlin’s attempt to move away from a past of Nazism and instead towards a future with a heavier emphasis on a united, democratic Germany.Specifically, it symbolizes that the people are above the government, as was not the case during Nazism.”

There was a lot to admire about the dome, but I was really taken by the mirror on the stem going up to the dome which reflected the people walking around the ramps very clearly. I don’t know what kind of wizardry is involved, but it’s impressive. Down at the base of the dome is a series of plaques that walk you through the history of the place.

Fun Fact: Otto Von Bismarck has a monument nearby. “Hey! That fact wasn’t fun at all!”

After the Reichstag, we had a parting of the ways. Harper and Amy were interested in a coffee and a bit of a rest. Cole and I kind of wanted to walk the 1.25 miles or so to the Victory column. We did not make a bee line. Rather, we were distracted by the Soviet War Memorial and the Beethoven-Haydn-Mozart memorial in the Tiergarten. From a purely American perspective, the Soviet War Memorial is kind of bonkers. They’re the bad guys, right? Does nobody remember the documentary, Red Dawn? But it’s a testament to the complicated history of the place. For all of their own atrocities, the Soviet people were wronged by the Nazis. The Soviets controlled the area and erected a monument to the sacrifices and achievements of their people. Part of the German de-Nazification project involves recognizing that they were bad actors in WWII. And, so, you have Soviet tanks on the way to a Prussian monument.

The monument to the musicians is tucked away a little bit. We were walking the path and saw something shiny off to the side which turned out to be the Beethoven-Haydn-Mozart memorial. Cole joked about how their music seems to be the only “real” music in the eyes of the Jacobs School of Music where he’s currently studying. (Hyperbole, I’m sure.) It was apparently commissioned in 1904 by Kaiser Wilhelm, suffered a lot of damage during the War, and restored in 2007.

By and by, we made our way to the Victory Column. It’s an impressive structure in the middle of a traffic circle. I guess it has symbolized various things over the years, but Prussian military prowess and defeat of various European adversaries seems to be the main purpose. One cool feature is that it has tunnel access from the four corners of the intersection. Amy and Harper had taken a bus there but, with no obvious cross walks hadn’t figured out how to access the circle until Cole and I popped out of a tunnel. Once again, as a tourist, I’m never entirely sure what to do with these things. I look at it, admire the structure, snap a few pictures, and then go on to the next place. I’m not exactly speed running the sites, but I don’t know how deeply any of it is penetrating either. That said, if it’s an excuse to spend time with my family, it’s probably worthwhile.

Checkpoint Charlie has this banner with Soviet and American soldiers opposite each other.

Next up, Checkpoint Charlie and its museum. The area itself is a street with a guard shack in the median and posters of American and Soviet soldiers hanging above. Back in the day, after East Germany put up the wall to keep its citizens in, this crossing point at the border was a symbol of the Cold War. Now it’s a street where I almost got hit because I was looking at the poster rather than watching out for traffic. There would have been some irony in getting hit by a car at that spot in the world. We went into the adjacent museum, and it is *dense*. This does not seem to be the work of professional historians. It’s informative, but a bit random. And there’s no real narrative that I could discern. But Ronald Reagan’s hat was there! Our family had mixed opinions on the museum. I think the kids ended up liking it better than the adults. Nerds!

Enjoying a nightcap with comfy seats, soccer on the television, and complementary use of the facilities.

We had a well earned dinner at a place called Maximilians. It was good but not great. I had some trout, and Cole and I both had large beers. One thing about being an older man and a beer drinker is that one is well-advised to take advantage of a bathroom when the opportunity presents itself. Cole skipped that opportunity and quickly came to regret it as we made our way home. It was going to involve some time and train rides. The boy was in pain, and Berlin doesn’t have the number of public restrooms you might expect in a city so large. Eventually, we made the decision to stop in a restaurant and get more drinks so that we could be paying customers, entitled to use their facilities. I’m not sure if it was the Titanic hotel or the Pascarella restaurant where we landed, but there is a really comfy bar in between where we set up shop. It has nice seats, tables, and couches. Soccer was playing.. It was really a happy bit of spontaneity. (Amy had us so well planned that we joked about putting spontaneity on the schedule.)

At that point, we’d run ourselves pretty hard, and it was time for bed. I woke up in the middle of the night freezing. At the time, I thought it was just cold in the room. But in retrospect, it may have been a bit of a fever I didn’t know I had. Whatever it might have been was gone by morning.

Next time: food tour, East Wall, and the Hasselhoff “Museum”

Indiana Capital Chronicle: Bill Eliminating Parents’ Authority Over Medical Decisions Heads to Governor

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Whitney Downard, writing for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, has an article about SB 480 entitled “Bill Eliminating Parents’ Authority Over Medical Decisions Heads to Governor.” I posted about the bill following the House committee hearing a few days ago. The bill passed the House 60-35 on a mostly party line vote.  This legislation is just cruel. It helps no one and makes many people’s lives harder. I personally know at least three families this will affect negatively.

“Indiana lawmakers seem hellbent on joining the growing roster of states determined to jeopardize the health and lives of transgender youth, in direct opposition to the overwhelming body of scientific and medical evidence supporting this care as appropriate and necessary,” said Katie Blair, the advocacy and public policy director of  [ACLU-Indiana].

“The idea that these youth are being pushed into harmful medical care is an insult to their parents who are working very hard to get the best care for their children. Politicians harm us all when they ignore medical judgment and block access to standard care in favor of discriminatory fear-mongering.”

I disagree with a lot of what comes out of the Indiana General Assembly. But, mostly I can at least understand the motivations from, at the very least, a who-gains, who-loses standpoint. Tax cuts for the rich? Well, they earned it, we need to encourage productivity, and spending money on social programs is a waste. Restricting reproductive rights? The fetus is a baby and, therefore, abortion is murder. Etc.

I can usually put myself into the shoes of proponents and grok how they can view themselves as the good guys. (Like my creative writing taught me for developing characters – remember that everyone is the hero in their own story.) But it’s beyond me on this one. You have a kid in need, struggling with a difficult situation, parents who agree with the kid that puberty blockers or hormone therapy is the way to go, and physicians who agree that it’s medically appropriate. Invoking the power of the government to criminalize their efforts will make me the good guy? Maybe my powers of empathy are atrophying, but I just can’t climb inside that mind.