An American In Berlin

Oy, I'm going to try and have the Ypres posts up this weekend. Not much time with the kids out of school now!

In meantime, saw this interesting story in the New York Times. The Americans have just opened a new embassy in Berlin, right beside the Brandenburg Gate. This was quite a contentious project, as the Germans are very particular over what gets placed in that square.

Some Germans find the new embassy rather ugly. After a spate of embassy bombings in Africa by Al Qaeda in the 90s, American embassy design has focused on security over aesthetics. Their embassy in Kenya, for example, used to have large glass windows around the outside; when it was bombed, huge numbers of people were killed and injured from shards of glass rather than from the explosion itself.

(Their embassy here in The Hague is representative of their attitude towards embassies today--from the outside it resembles a maximum-security prison.)

But the Germans also didn't want the embassy to look TOO nice. As you might remember from my trip to Berlin, the French embassy is also in the square but is basically a dull-looking box; the Germans don't want anything fancy to take the attention away from the Gate. I still find this insistence a bit silly on their part, but maybe it's just some historical German thing that I don't get.

Anyway. In the photo below, the new embassy is in the very center and the Gate is to the right.

When the new United States Embassy opens here on Friday it will mark the end not only of nearly four years of construction, but also of the final chapter in more than a decade of an often bitter process between the city and American diplomats, punctuated in the final stages by hard jabs from local architecture critics.

[...]

The embassy, the first designs for which were completed in 1996, seemed to attract criticism that reflected the prevailing mood in Germany over the years toward the United States, from a reassertion of sovereignty over its former occupier in the 1990s to a reaction against the post-9/11 bunker mentality. Even with the finishing touches this spring, the broadsides continued, this time coming from German architecture critics. “Fort Knox at the Brandenburg Gate,” the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung put it in May.

Visiting the embassy last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged the controversy, saying, “I know it was not easy to bring this embassy to this place, but it is absolutely fitting that the United States Embassy is here where it was before World War II, and this place, sitting right there, is also testament to the fact that nothing is impossible.” [Brian's note--that's a little dramatic, I think...]

As Ms. Rice noted, the new embassy is a return for the United States to its old home before World War II on the historic Pariser Platz, next to the Brandenburg Gate. It is a special moment for the entire city, as the final rebuilt space on the historic square.

Happy Canada Day

And particularly to our soldiers in Afghanistan.



In ten days I'll be back home. Crazy.

Can't wait to be on Canadian soil again though.


(all pictures taken from the CTV website)

Butting Out

The countdown is on: tomorrow Holland joins the rest of the Western world in banning smoking from indoor public places, including restaurants and bars. I can't wait--I'm sick and tired of coming home from Murphy's pub reeking like tobacco.

The same idiocy heard in every country when smoking bans are announced is being repeated here; how many bars and hotels went out of business in Canada when the ban was brought in? I'm guessing it's in the neighbourhood of zilch.

"It is clear that enterprises are awaiting the ban with dread: polls show that 60 percent are thinking of selling their businesses," said a recent statement from horecasite.nl -- claiming to be the Netherlands' biggest online retail agency for the hotel, restaurant and cafe (horeca) industry.

But pot smokers need not worry: marijuana joints aren't affected by the ban. Go figure.

Meanwhile, Spain parties its ass off after winning Euro 2008. At least it wasn't Russia!

Ypres posts will be up in a few days.

Putin's Victory

The New Republic on the Russian football team that eliminated the Dutch and is one match away from the Euro 2008 championship game:

There's much to be said for healthy sports nationalism, and it's certainly not unheard of, particularly in Russia, to use sport as a means for promoting love of country. But Russian politicians are now doing it so overtly that the team seems irretrievably infused with the animating spirit of Putinism--one part inferiority complex, two parts rising superpower. Said then-prime minister Viktor Zubkov before Russia's critical October qualification match against England: "They have 11 players, and we have 11 players. They have two arms and two hands and one head each, and we have the same. But do you know what the most important thing is? We, Russians, won World War II. And we were the first in space." After Russia came from behind to win, pro-Putin parliamentarian Alexander Babakov exulted, "This victory will only boost Russia's rebirth."

The first place to look in order to explain Russia's success is to its Dutch-born coach, Guus Hiddink. Hiddink is one of the most highly regarded minds in international soccer, having led the Netherlands, South Korea, and Australia to impressive finishes in the past three World Cups. When Hiddink's contract with Australia expired in 2006, nations lined up at his doorstep to hire him--including powerhouses like England, not accustomed to being turned down. Russia outbid them all, because only Russia boasts a stable of exceedingly wealthy men who are all but compelled to fund the country's athletic-industrial complex. Hiddink's $4 million annual salary is paid by gazillionaire oil magnate Roman Abramovich, who spends a total of $55 million each year--more than the annual budget of the national soccer federation--paying players and coaches and building soccer facilities in Russia.

[...]

"Putin has been clawing back the country's assets from the oligarchs and forcing them to invest their enormous riches in Russia, including Russian football," Jim Riordan, formerly a professor at the University of Bradford in England and an expert on Russian sport, told The Observer. "If they refuse, they know they will lose not only their assets. They could end up down the Volga."

[...]

Ordinarily, a [Russian] player who's been as impressive in a major international tournament as Arshavin has would bolt his current club team for a lucrative contract in Spain, England, or Italy. Arshavin may well do that, but it won't be for financial reasons: He makes upwards of $100,000 a week with his current team, Zenit St. Petersburg, and since the team is bankrolled by the state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom, it won't have trouble upping that if needed. "He wants to play for Barcelona, but I don't think they can pay him more than he earns now," boasted sports minister Vitaly Mutko.

[...]

(The phenomenon extends to other sports, too: A new Russian hockey league, backed by Gazprom, has offered Pittsburgh Penguins star Evgeni Malkin a record $15 million to ply his trade back home.)

Of course, it's easy to see Russia's athletic renaissance as something far darker than it is. There are worse things an authoritarian petro-state could spend its money on, and any country with 140 million people can be expected to have its glory days. And we can be glad that athletic talent, unlike global power, isn't zero-sum. But when the Russians take the field against Spain in Vienna tomorrow, you may want to think about cheering for the Iberians.