You know how outraged your were on behalf of the Jews and Muslims in Germany? You forgot the follow up.

       The New York Times (and many others) took notice last month when a local court in Cologne ruled that circumcision of underage boys was tantamount to grievous bodily harm and should be forbidden.  Adult men would, naturally, be able to choose their own religions and are permitted to do what they wanted with their foreskins.  This ruling regarded a case where a Muslim 4 year old, in accordance with a Muslim tradition, was circumcised.  Although the child was circumcised by a doctor and under proper conditions, mistakes were made, and the child was wounded and suffered excessive bleeding. 
       Of course, this ruling was very controversial.  Jewish tradition dictates that male infants be circumcised on the eighth day after birth, and the German government tried to wipe all Jews off the face of the earth a mere 70 years ago.  The ruling was also tough to take for Germany's largest immigrant group, Muslim Turks, who even if they may have been born, raised, and educated in Germany, speak perfect German and little to no Turkish, are often considered to be and treated as outsiders.  It's a very difficult subject.  Does this ruling imply that Germans want to protect all children in Germany, even Jewish and Muslim children, or is it proof positive that Germany wants those who are not Christians to pack up and leave?  The New York Times had a Motherlode section about it.  They even had a Room for Debate column about it with opinions by a few doctors and other very important people.  The commenters completely lost it, as naturally internet commenters are known to do.  A variety of opinions from "religious liberty should be protected - they are trying to kill all the Jews again" to "circumcision is mutilation, good for the Germans" were expressed.  Then The New York Times published a tug-at-your-heartstrings piece about this family suggesting that now Jews and Muslims in Germany are not going to be able to get their children circumcised in hospitals, by doctors under sterile conditions and covered by health insurance, that they will instead resort to getting their sons' foreskins removed by shady practitioners in back alleys - as unlikely as that seems.
       Good for The New York Times for covering this issue and discussing it.  But they forgot the end of the story.  Which is that German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that circumcision and religious freedom would be protected.  She said that Jewish and Muslim culture would be safe and welcomed in Germany.  The lower house of parliament passed legislation saying that Jews and Muslims could circumcise their sons.  Yet somehow, after all that worrying, The New York Times did not cover these important developments.  This oversight upsets me because I believe The New York Times is giving the American public an incorrect view of Germany and the condition of German Muslims and Jews in the 21st century.  I think the paper should have alerted their readership that all the worrying should be over. 
       But before I go, I would like to address the ruling itself.  We cannot forget that a German court in a major city did say that, before the age of consent, non medically necessary circumcision should be considered child abuse.  Many people see this ruling as an attempt to criminalize Jewish and Muslim cultural traditions, normalize Christian and secular German society, and make Jews and Muslims feel unwelcome.  That may be part of it, but I don't think it's the main reasoning behind the original ruling.  I believe that the ruling was an indication of two phenomena:  the increasing unpopularity of circumcision in general and the German tendency toward defending the rights of the child over the rights of the parents. 
       I'm not an expert on family life in Germany, I certainly haven't lived here long enough.  But it seems to me that there is absolutely no contest between a parent's rights and a child's rights in this country.  German parents cannot homeschool their children, the Germans believe that all children have a right to go to a school with curricula that have been subject to review by someone other than their parents.  Although religious schools are always an option, they still have to be approved.  German parents are not allowed to spank their children.  German children can only be given names that are on a very extensive list of approved names.  The name must be appropriate, a genuine name and not a random noun or adjective, and must reflect the child's gender.  What if mom is Chinese, dad is German, and the couple want to give their son a Chinese name that's not on the German list?  Fine - but rest assured the Germans will be checking with the Chinese consulate to make sure that the name is an appropriate name in China for a male.  In other words, you can't name your child Apple, Moon, or Gi'zelle in Germany.  Americans see these things, typically, as parents not having the right to educate, discipline, and name their children how and what they want.  Germans see it as protecting the right of the child to be educated properly, be free from violence, and be given a proper and dignified name.  It's just a different way of looking at things, and I can see the merits of both sides.  It's one thing to let an adult change his name to Tree Bark Ass Face as long as you insist that, as a kid, his legal name will be something like Arthur.  It's also another thing to let an adult man have a healthy piece of skin removed as a religious rite as long as his parents didn't have the right to do it to him when he was a baby. 
       The other phenomenon I think played a part in the original ruling is just the fact that circumcision just isn't as popular as it used to be, even among populations that used to be its strongest supporters.  Most of the American men of my generation were circumcised.  Many members of my generation of Americans are having children now, and not as many of the sons are circumcised as their fathers.  As it is among the rest of Americans, circumcision popularity is falling among American Jews.  On top of the fact that I know a few Jewish parents who have decided not to have their sons circumcised, there is an online community.  More and more people just feel a little weird about removing something healthy and natural from their sons genitals, even if it's a tradition (religious or secular) to do so, and even if they know many perfectly happy and sexually content men who were circumcised as infants.  The vast majority of Jews and Muslims still circumcise their sons, but it'll probably be a little less popular every year.
       I certainly can't see into the future, but it sure looks to me like the practice of circumcision may have peaked in popularity.  My guess is that after (and this could be decades) the population will stop really circumcising its sons very much, then doctors will start discouraging it, and it will slowly be legally restricted in various areas to boys over 16 or so, and then only with the written recommendation of a religious leader or something.  But for now, the religious rite of infant circumcision is protected in Germany.  Way to go, New York Times, you got us all wound up and upset and then totally missed the conclusion.

Drunk Australians

       Chuck Klosterman is off to a bang up start as the new writer of The Ethicist column.  In his column of July 6, 2012, Exit-Row Exigencies, an Australian man writes in to ask if it is ethical for a passenger seated in an airplane's exit row to get blindingly intoxicated.  Klosterman essentially says it's not great - but it's so not a big deal because the chance that the intoxicated man will be the only person on a plane who can open a door and that he will be too blotto to do so is infinitesimal. 
       Fair enough, Chuck - but what he actually included in this little answer was, "From a practical standpoint, I would trust an intoxicated Australian more than most sober Americans."
       Apparently there is no editor at the illustrious New York Times who has the know how to say, "Chuckie-baby, your tongue-in-cheek jab at sober Americans does not actually help answer the man's question, is in all kinds of poor taste, and shows just how amazingly unfunny you can be."

You're asking the wrong question about the boys

       New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks column, Honor Code, of July 5th, 2012 discusses the achievement gap between boys and girls.  Brooks describes how males are falling behind in a variety of subjects and attend and graduate college in far smaller numbers than do females.  Brooks worries that boys who don't fit in to the current sharing and sitting still culture are given Ritalin and told they are bad kids.  The real answer, accord to the non-teacher Brooks, is for schools to celebrate, "Not just teachers who honor environmental virtues, but teachers who honor military virtues; not just curriculums that teach how to share, but curriculums that teach how to win and how to lose." 
       Forgive me, dearest David, but do you actually remember school?  School is all about winners and losers!  Yes, there are friends in school.  But from the first day of pre-kindergarten, school is about who wins the spelling bee, who makes the honor roll, who has the coolest backpack, who makes the basketball team, who gets the solo in the school musical, who gets a date to the dance.  What did you study in history class?  Because I learned about military victories - not how everybody just got along in some giant love-in.
       But I digress, that's not my real issue with David Brooks' column.  First of all, the achievement gap has been discussed in numerous news articles for years and years.  Somebody points out about how boys are falling behind girls in reading, college attendance, perfect posture, whatever.  The other side points out that at age 14, girls may be better at analyzing poetry about daffodils, but it's the boys who are going to have higher powered jobs and making more money 20 years later.  Nobody ever gets anywhere. 
       I think that the media keeps having the same discussion, and it's the wrong one.  I don't think that boys are falling behind girls, at least not in the way everybody keeps describing.  I don't think it's relevant to compare boys to girls in this way.  I think we should be comparing boys to other boys. 
        Sure, female college students outnumber male college students - overall.  But males students outnumber female students at Harvard Business School.  If you look at the most competitive programs, the achievement gap disappears.  There were 82 Rhodes Scholars in 2012, 40 were women, 42 were men.  The achievement gap was nowhere to be seen.  When it comes to who owns commercial and licensed patents, only 5.5% are owned by women.  Now let's look at the far end of the spectrum, specifically people on death row awaiting execution for a capital crime.  At the end of 2011, less than 2% of prisoners scheduled to be executed were women. 
       My point is that males are not falling behind females.  Young women are just taking advantage of educational opportunities their grandmothers may not have had.  Young men aren't falling behind young women.  Young men are becoming more stratified.  Young men go to elite business schools, and they get into gang fights.  They become millionaires, and they become deadbeat dads.   And most of the ladies are somewhere in between those two extremes.
       A few other things have happened to American society since this so called "achievement gap" started getting some attention.  The first is the growing percentage of Americans (mostly American men) behind bars since around 1980.  This isn't because crime is out of control so much as due to mandatory long sentences for drug crimes.  When a man is in jail, his children suffer tremendously.  Perhaps, although I have no figures to back this up, his sons suffer most of all without a male roll model.  Additionally, American society itself has become financially far more stratified than in previous decades.  If a young man can't rely on a secure, well-paying manufacturing job to provide for a family (as he possibly could have in 1955) he may see little use in straightening up and flying right. 
       Boys aren't falling behind girls.  They are just mirroring what is happening in society as a whole.  A few of them will win the science fair, and many more will just drop out.  And the average is slipping.  When compared to the more middle-of-the-road females, boys are, on average, dropping.  Much the way the average American household income doesn't have the same buying power it did in 1975, the average school boy's test scores are going down.  If you want to see boys do better in school, maybe it would be helpful if the adult men weren't in prison.  Maybe it would be helpful if the adult men could make a decent wage at a reasonable job. 
       Yes, David Brooks, I agree with you.  Schools do need a culture change.  But schools don't need to focus on celebrating toughness and physical exertion and winning - they already do that.  The message to a group of 12 year olds should not be:  any one of you could be the next President/founder of facebook/rock star.  The message should be:  with a little hard work and playing by the rules, even if you aren't the best at math/baseball/spelling, you'll still be able to get a decent job and have a good life.  And (here's the tricky part) it has to be true.
      

Maybe you'll understand student loans one of these days, NYT

       The New York Times ventured again into the student loan abyss with a June 27th editorial, The Deal on Student Loans.  Basically, the Times used the editorial to fuss at congress for not figuring out sooner how to keep the current student loan interest rate at 3.4% instead of climbing back up to 6.8%.  Naturally, Republicans and Democrats had to bitch at each other until the 11th hour before finally figuring out how to do what needed to be done, and the loans will stay at 3.4% for another year and another D vs. R showdown.
       Fine - it's a grand thing that the student loan interest rate is staying at 3.4%.  Groovy.  Still not the real problem.  The real problem is that college costs WAY MORE than it used to.  College costs have grown much, much faster than inflation.  MUCHMUCHMUCHMUCHMUCH faster.  My alma mater (and again, I am very devoted) will cost current students, assuming they need to buy an occasional textbook or new pair of underpants, a quarter of a million dollars for 4 years.
       When will we say too much?  When will parents say, "You know what, I'm going to give my child a quarter of a million dollars to buy a Subway's Sandwiches franchise instead of sending him to college, and let's see how he compares to that philosophy major in 10 years."  I know that college graduates earn more money than those who are not college graduates.  But at some point, the financial drain of college will start to be more than the financial rewards of going to college.  At some point, college graduates will suffer buyer's remorse.  At some point, smart kids will stay out of college because it is honestly an intelligent decision to do so.  At some point, smart parents will convince their smart kids not to go to college because they are honestly making smart decisions.  That day would suck - and let's hope this trend can be stopped before we get there.
       As one NYTimes commenter calling himself E. T. Bass beautifully summed up the problem:

STILL MISSES MAIN POINT

Interest is one thing. C-o-s-t in the big deal. Until costs are restrained -- most of this is just useless.

C-o-s-t.

Actually, the Germans are unlikely to shoot themselves in the foot

       I have to admit, I'm not an expert in macro economics.  I'm just a person who tries to stay informed about world events and who is (at present) an American on the ground in Germany.  Please, dear readers, correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that some smaller, weaker countries, like Greece, were able to borrow money like never before once they started to share the Euro currency with bigger, richer countries like Germany.  So, now that we are in a horrible recession, Greece has borrowed its way into oblivion and is having trouble making payments not only because it borrowed more than it could comfortably pay back, but because austerity measures resulted in a further slowing down of the economy (not to mention personal hardship and lapses in services) and the rampant tax evasion in Greece isn't helping either.  Also, nobody thinks Greece will pay up, so borrowing rates are sky-high.  Am I right?  Please, do tell me if I'm missing something here.
       Germany, by far the strongest and richest country on the Euro, is supposed to keep bailing out the weaker economies of Greece and (possibly) soon to be Italy, Spain, and Portugal.  The Germans seem to keep saying, "We've given them enough money, it's time for them to get their act together.  We have our act together, we pay our darn taxes and work until 67."  The Euro is a bit of a mess, and the leaders are now in Belgium trying to figure out what to do next.
     On June 26, Op-Ed contributors Kenneth Griffin and Anil Kashyap wrote the article, "To Save the Euro, Leave It" suggesting that instead of Greece (for example) leaving the Euro, that Germany should instead leave.  That's all "thinking outside the box" and sexy and off the wall and compelling and everything - but I can't see how you could actually talk the Germans into it.  The writers' idea is that once the Germans returned to the Deutschmark, the Euro would become instantly weaker, and the exports of Euro countries would become much cheaper and more competitive.  Additionally, a weaker Euro, "Would not solve the debt burdens of southern European countries, but it would give them needed breathing room to restructure their economies, reform labor markets, collect more taxes and reassure investors."  Please, pray tell, how would a weaker Euro allow a debt-strapped country to collect more taxes?  Tax evasion will somehow cease to be a problem with a weaker Euro, and all those Greek billionaires will allow the tax man into their giant offshore mattresses?
       But let's leave that aside for the moment.  The basic idea of this article is that Germany could fix things by leaving the Euro and going back to the Deutschmark.  That way, the Mark would be strong, the Euro would instantly be weaker, and other Euro country exports would instantly become more competitive than German exports abroad.  Apparently, once Germany would leave the Euro, Griffin and Kashyap believe that international companies will immediately start investing in tons of  factories in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, as the newly depressed Euro will allow companies to hire people to make widgets at low low prices and sell beach-front condos at low low prices too.  Apparently Germany would just have to deal with not having exports that were as competitive.  I very much doubt that Italian/Greek/Spanish/Portuguese exports would take off at such a pace, but let's say (for the sake of argument) that the writers might be onto something. 
       There's just one thing I have to ask dearest Kash and Griff, "What 's in it for Germany?"  Unlike the United States, Germany is a net exporting country.  Exporting German goods is a major part of the German economy and the German culture.  K and G admit it's going to be painful for the Germans, at least at first, stating:  "Germany’s industrial base would unquestionably endure hardship in the transition to a stronger currency . . . Over time, the industrial base of Germany would adapt and move forward."
        Griffin and Kashyap are Harvard and MIT trained financial geniuses in Chicago, and I'm sure either one of them could crush me with a single thought.  But last week I was at a public school here in the German city where I live, a public school in a tough neighborhood.  I go there once a week to help any kid who wants some free extra help with English, and sometimes I look through the extra textbooks left for teacher reference.  There are many high schools, such as the one at which I volunteer, that train students for highly specialized factory jobs.  And their textbooks are amazing.  They go on and on about how wonderful it is that Germany is a next exporting country.  How great it is that MADE IN GERMANY is an international sign of high quality and excellent craftsmanship.  How the students will go on to work in a factory and become part of this proud tradition.  Most of the kids I work with won't go to college, but they will have good paying, steady, well-respected factory jobs because Germany protects its factories, it's factory workers, and its export culture.
       Those three English words, MADE IN GERMANY, are all over the place.  Because English is more widely understood that German, the proud saying is always in English, but all the Germans understand it.  Is the local soccer team playing a game against a Spanish team?  You'll see a sign with a picture of a Seville orange over a MADE IN SPAIN sign next to a picture of a steel orange juicer over a MADE IN GERMANY sign.  There are even contemporary art shows called MADE IN GERMANY that showcase sculptures and paintings by local artists. I'm confused.  Why would Germany voluntarily leave the Euro and make life harder for all the people who make German exports?  Why?  Why would Germany so blatantly act against its own financial interest? 
       I don't doubt that Kashyap and Griffin are brilliant financial minds.  And I know that something must be done about Greece, and something must be done about the Euro.  But, I believe they are mistaken if they think Germany is going to endanger its net exporting status just to help its neighbors.  Nobody wants to keep bailing out other countries.  But if it's between forking out another huge bailout or crippling German exports for the next 50 years, I think I know which one Germany's going to pick.  The Germans didn't even finish paying off their World War 1 reparations until 2010 - so they seem to be able to grit their teeth and write a check.  It doesn't mean that they are going to let Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) become Athenian Motor Works. The MADE IN GERMANY culture is deeper than Kashyap and Griffin seem to realize.  The Germans are going to make sure that 20 year old German factory worker has a job before they worry that a 20 year old Spanish factory worker has a job.  And really, can you blame them?

STEM Education - the word is getting out (kind of)

     Dearest readers - as you know - I went off on a huge rant about how the United States trains plenty of young people in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.  So many, in fact, that many of my friends with higher degrees in STEM subjects are having trouble finding work.  Nevertheless, various politicians and news outlets (I'm looking at you New York Times) seem to think that it is the gospel truth that America doesn't have enough scientists, and gosh darn it, it would just be 1960 again if only we could just make science more fun for kids!
      Slate, an online news magazine that I really respect, decided to put their two misinformed cents in and asked their readers to suggest ways to get American kids interested in science, because having more scientists will just fix all our problems.  Naturally, this prompted a letter to the editor from me that the entire premise of this project is flawed.  Naturally, I never heard back.
     However, Slate must have gotten some sort of message from somewhere, because today they posted an opinion piece by an actual scientist!  Actual, working scientists had been suspiciously lacking from the "getting kids into science will fix all our problems" song.  Derek Lowe, an actual chemist, wrote a fascinating article tellingly titled, "We don't need more scientists - we need better ones."  To summarize for you, he lets us know that there are plenty of American scientists who are underemployed, and that it won't help to add 1000 mediocre scientific minds when you need 1 genius.  He talks about the outsourcing of many routine scientific jobs, and how it isn't a good time, economically, to be a mediocre scientist.  He also worries that the next Isaac Newton might be in an area with inadequate scientific education, so he ends up being a farmer instead of unraveling the secrets of the universe.  He also worries that the greatest American mathematical minds are working in finance instead of mathematics.  Funny how absolutely sane, rational, and reasonable an actual scientist sounds.  He also states that there is no scientists shortage:

             We don’t need as many scientists as we can get just because they’re scientists. Does a bowl of soup need all the salt it can get? We need all the excellent ones we can find, without shoveling in people who’d just as soon be doing something else.


       I also really liked one of the comments from a man calling himself  Scientific_American.  The first and last sentences of his comment were, "I'm an academic researcher, with a focus on cancer research, and I 100% agree with this post . . . the very idea that there isn't enough people is the field is laughable."
       Alright, Slate may have broken the story.  What's the next news outlet that's going to catch on?

Nobody's with you on this, dude

       Clemens Wergin of Berlin wrote on June 15, 2012 in the New York Times Op-Ed section in a piece entitled "Go, Fight, but don't Win" in which he tells us that although he is German, he does not want Germany to win the current European Soccer Championship.  He feels that Europe is getting a little anxiety ridden about the Germans using their good economy (at present the strongest of all countries on the Euro) to dominate the continent politically.  Therefore, it would be a sign of German humility to graciously lose the games - or at least not try to hard to win.
       Well, Wergin, I'm going to tell you 2 things, please stick with me, friend.

1.  Nobody is with you on this

Almost every car, tricycle, wheelchair, and shop window that I see is sporting the German flag right now.  When the Germans beat the Dutch, people were literally celebrating on the street in front of my apartment building.  And I don't really live on that busy of a street.  (Way to publish a non-representative, not at all news opinion, NYTimes)


2. Soccer doesn't start or end international conflicts

If I'm wrong, please let me know - I am willing to learn.  But wars are not started or finished on the soccer pitch.  Yes, sports are important, especially to a nation's identity.  They just aren't that important politically.  Sports can't end an economic recession.  Whoever wins, at the end of the European Soccer Championship, the Germans are still going to have their strong economy, and Greece is still going to be in the middle of a giant disaster.  Yes, there are people who live and breathe soccer.  There are people glued to TV screens, and there are people yelling in stadiums.  There are people who will cry and scream and get drunk and tell their grandchildren about it one day.  But there isn't a sane adult human being in this world who would trade a steady paycheck in a stable country for a little ball kicked into a large net.