Do any of us really keep more than one basket these days?

Now with the intention of learning a second foreign properly, I find my mind building a new ring fence around what can and can’t be said in the new foreign. I wonder what effect this might have on the old foreign–will my brain try to corral it into the smaller space, or might the fencing be removed altogether and treated like my native tongue? Will I find myself stumbling over my own thoughts as in French, or will I need to battle over my brains’ self-imposed hurdles to express myself?

Alert for etymology aficionados: “shitstorm” is about to join the nouns “handy” and “mobbing” as another expressive loan word in German. #fb

— cryptopix (@cryptopix) February 6, 2012

So it’s come this far. After winning the dubious award of Anglizismus des Jahres 2011, der Shitstorm has become salonfähig everyday vocabulary. According to the jury:

Shitstorm füllt eine Lücke im deutschen Wortschatz, die sich durch Veränderungen in der öffentlichen Diskussionskultur aufgetan hat. Es hat sich im Laufe des letzten Jahres von der Netzgemeinde aus auf den allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch ausgebreitet und gut in die Struktur des Deutschen eingefügt.
Anglizismus des Jahres 2011

The word’s childish irreverence in English hasn’t prevented its becoming so acceptable that German newsreaders on the tagesschau can use the word quite po-faced:

Shitstorm ist jetzt schon @tagesschau jargon?

— Sebastian Nell (@sebastian_nell) April 23, 2013

Des Shitstorms oder des Shitstorm?

And just to give it the Teutonic rubber stamp of officialdom, the use of an extra ‘s’ in the genitive is apparently proof of the word’s acceptance into the German canon.

Handelt es sich um englische Wörter, die (noch) nicht Teil des deutschen Wortschatzes sind bzw. nicht als solcher empfunden werden – also nicht im Duden zu finden sind –, wie etwa das Brainwashing (im Gegensatz zum o.g. Brainstorming), dann heißt es im Genitiv auch die schlimmen Folgen des Brainwashing, also kein eingedeutschter Genitiv mit „s“, sondern das Wort wird dann wie ein Eigenname aufgefasst, der ja im Genitiv auch kein „s“ erhält: die Kriege des Cäsar.
Korrektur + Lektorat

Hence here’s the Duden entry. Ach, you land of poets and thinkers… where did they all go?

It’s a situation many of us are familiar with. The milk turns sour, the yoghurt has curdled, and there are patches of water on the kitchen tiles. At fault in this tale is the refrigerator, which, barely three years old, has started to gurgle and appears to be reaching the end of its useful life. And like the DVD player, vacuum cleaner and coffee machine before it, the warranty has expired and the costs of repair far outweigh those of buying afresh. Yet according to a new survey, these failures might just be deliberate.

The study put before the German Bundestag by the Green Party claims to have found evidence of what it calls ‘planned obsolescence’ in a survey of over 2,000 products. Citing numerous examples, the report claims that manufacturers deliberately choose low quality components known to fail, or employ technical tricks to prevent their being repaired and encourage consumers to discard and buy new. This includes what in German are called Sollbruchstellen,¹ weak points designed to fail. In this way a device can be crippled by the failure of an otherwise fairly insignificant component. Another trick cited used the example of an electric toothbrush, where the regular rechargeable batteries were rendered inaccessible by design, meaning the appliance would need replacing as soon as the batteries failed. According to the report, the costs of this subterfuge weigh on the consumer, who spends billions of euros annually replacing broken goods, and the environment, through the tons of electronic goods which end up on the scrap heap because of miniscule failures.

This issue is by no means new. Suspicious consumers have long claimed that manufacturers deliberately produce goods with such built­in faults to ensure a steady stream of customers. Certain episodes from history highlight the possibilities. The infamous Phoebus cartel, formed by companies including Osram, Philips and General Electric in the 1920s to control the sale of lightbulbs, agreed to deliberately limit their lifespan to 1,000 hours, although technically much more durable bulbs had already been produced. A lightbulb in the Livermore Pleasanton Fire Department in California has been shining non­stop since 1902, and indeed has its own webcam feed. It is perhaps indicative of the lack of durability among electronic goods that the bulb has already outlived two webcams.

The hard evidence presented in this report is nevertheless relatively thin, and critics admit that much of the problem lies with the consumer buying cheap goods, made by necessity of lower quality components. Under German law it is up to consumers to provide evidence of deliberate mismanufacture, and producers can always call on the defence of regular wear and tear. Instead, Nicole Maisch, the Green Party’s consumer policy speaker, has demanded a swift overhaul of guarantee and warranty rights, a move which might promote a shift towards the production of more durable products. She also called for products to carry clear declarations of their reparability and expected lifespans. White goods in the EU are already distinguished by an energy efficiency label, rating them according to current standards: certain consumer groups would like to see similar gradings to highlight product durability. Whether this will stop teenagers needlessly throwing away their fully functioning mobile phones when the next generation smartphone comes on the market, however, is another question entirely.

1. A word otherwise used to describe the ability of certain animals to amputate a limb at a certain point as a self-defence mechanism.

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Video of the complete talk available is on YouTube here.

«Es zieht wie Hechtsuppe»

Example:

Das nasskalte Wetter ist bestimmt nicht geeignet, die Stimmung in höchste Höhen schnellen zu lassen. Zumal es auf dem Markt an vielen Ecken zieht wie Hechtsuppe.
Aachener Nachrichten

Terrible draughts in Germany are apparently comparable to pike soup. Why that should be the case isn’t quite clear, but there are a few theories. The favourite has it that Hechtsuppe is actually a corrupted form of the Yiddish phrase hech soppa / supha, meaning ‘like a (strong) storm’.

An alternative theory is that it’s actually a play on the verb ziehen. To get the full flavour out of the fish, especially pike, the soup is left for a long time to simmer and the flavours to effuse.¹

«Dreikäsehoch»

Example:

Mit Wintersport hatte Ronny Häring schon als Dreikäsehoch begonnen, als er jahrelang Junioren-Eishockey spielte.
SPEEDWEEK

Nipper, squirt, tiny tot, sprog, tyke—I’m sure there’s a hundred odd slang words in English, though I’m not sure any refer to cheese. Quite how high three cheeses are probably provokes some regional arguments, but this phrase, appearing in the 18th century to denote a cheeky little youngster, quite literally refers to the height of three cheese wheels stacked on top of one another. Or quite possibly it’s a French phrase perverted to suit the German ear, that originally referred to caisses (cases/crates) not Käse.²

«Tomaten auf den Augen»

Example:

Kokain im Blut aber Tomaten auf den Augen: Ein Porschefahrer bemerkt zu spät, dass der Passat vor ihm wegen eines Rettuungswagens bremsen muss und kracht ins Heck.
Abendzeitung München

If you miss the blindingly obvious, it might be because you have tomatoes on your eyes. The origins of this phrase are fairly unclear, though a common interpretation is that it’s a comparison to the bloody-eyed look of someone who has been up all night.³ Another suggestion is that it comes from times when traffic lights were accompanied by traffic police, and the remark refers to drivers not setting off when the light turned green.⁴ Though surely they’d be more likely to flag down drivers who have limes on their eyes.

«Die beleidigte Leberwurst»

Example:

Schweinsteiger hat es überhaupt nicht nötig, die beleidigte Leberwurst zu spielen.
Abendzeitung München

When you pout, go off in a huff or sulk, you might just be playing the insulted liver sausage. This rather older saying relates to the belief that ascribed organs in the body various roles, and in which the liver became the origin of your temperament and the centre of feelings such as anger, love and sorrow. Other phrases such as “die Laus, die einem über die Leber läuft” or “die Galle überlaufen/hochkommen” refer to the same idea. Hurt my feelings and you insult my liver.

Later, as the belief in the liver as the centre of a person’s feelings began to wane, the phrase was adapted to beleidigte Leberwurst. A popular apocryphal etymology explains the story of the various sausages cooking in a pot, in which all of the other sausages are taken out, and the Leberwurst, insulted at being last, bursts with anger.⁵

«Alles in Butter»

Example:

Gemessen an dem Kriterium der durchschnittlichen Dauer von Stromausfällen in Deutschland ist hier nach wie vor alles in Butter: Mit 15 Minuten bleibt dieser Wert sogar noch unter dem des Ausgangsjahres 2008.
Hamburger Abendblatt

Everything’s hunky-dory, everything’s in butter. In comparison to the majority on this list, this phrase has very practical origins. In the Middle Ages, when expensive glass was transported over the Alps to Germany from places like Venice, there was a very real risk of the expensive goods being broken by being rattled around or falling off the coach over the long and difficult journey. A simple solution was found, in which the brittle goods were placed in barrels and the latter then filled with hot butter, whereby the glass was secured against most of the knocks and bumps they might get on the voyage. With everything in butter, it was secure, and the phrase has stayed with us today.⁶

«Honig ums Maul schmieren»

Example:

Im Grunde unterstützte Şükür die vorherrschende Meinung, die Regierung sei drauf und dran, die Türkei in einen Abgrund zu stürzen, in dem sie die türkische Bevölkerung völlig übergehe, um den ethnischen Minderheiten weiterhin Honig ums Maul zu schmieren.
Turkishpress

If you want to ingratiate yourself with someone, smearing honey around their mouth (or beard) is a useful tactic. The most common explanation for the origins of this saying root in the training of bears, where honey smeared around the mouth was used as a form of reward, just as fish might be used for seals and dolphins.⁷

Another possible source for this phrase goes back to a Chinese tradition. The Kitchen God, sent by Yu Huang, the Emperor of Heaven, to watch over each household, reports back on their doings during the Chinese New Year celebrations. As a way of placating the Gods, an effigy of the god in paper or statue form is fed sticky rice or honey, and is either unable to report on the family, having his mouth too full to speak, or else is persuaded to only say ‘sweet’ things to the Emperor.⁸

«Nicht mein Bier»

Example:

«Schrebergarten ist nicht mein Bier … So lange es einen nicht quält und die Leute einen lassen, sollte man das ruhig noch machen. Es macht mir noch Spaß.»
Jaecki Schwarz, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung

Only to be expected in the land of the Reinheitsgebot, if something isn’t your beer, it isn’t your problem/has nothing to do with you. Except curiously, the phrase seems to have its origins in a rather more innocuous phrase, with the word Bier actually being a perversion of the regional pronunciation of the word Birne. Depending on the region, this might be pronounced Bürne (Bremen), d’Bian (Bavaria) or perhaps ‘n Beär (Cologne), which is often used in place of the word Sache in such phrases as „Das ist nicht meine Sache“ i.e. “That’s none of my business”.⁹

«Senf dazugeben»

Example:

Die Vorschläge kommen aus dem Publikum und jeder darf seinen Senf dazugeben.
Badische Zeitung

Not quite as neutral as adding your tuppence to a conversation, adding mustard is usually reserved for butting in with an unsolicited opinion. Most sources seem to agree that this saying has its origins in the 17th century. At that time, mustard was somehow seen as a condiment that might improve the flavour of any dish, leading to its liberal use in taverns and inns with nearly every meal, requested or not. This little addition, as unwelcome as it was untoward, was later applied to those (normally unwanted) comments from a third party to a conversation.¹⁰

Also, gebt gerne hierunter euren Senf dazu!

1. Sprichwörter & Redewendungen – Es zieht wie Hechtsuppe.
2. ARD – Wissen macht Ah!
3. Planet Wissen.
4. Redensarten-Index.
5. Duden – Leberwurst.
6. Sprichwörter & Redewendungen – Alles in Butter.
7. GEOlino.de – Jemandem Honig ums Maul schmieren.
8. About.com – The Kitchen God.
9. Duden; Wiktionary.
10. Redewendung: Seinen Senf dazugeben.

Übersetzt aus dem Englischen (Narconomics)

Juli 28. 2012 | The Economist

MEXIKO hat 11 Milliardäre, der Zeitschrift Forbes zufolge. Zehn werden oft bei Benefizdinners und anderen vornehmen Veranstaltungen lächelnd fotografiert. Der Elfte, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, hat ein ziemlich unähnliches Porträtfoto. Abgebildet in einem billigen Anorak sieht man ihn fröstelnd im Regen binnen der Betonmauer eines Hochsicherheitsgefängnises. Besser bekannt unter seinem Spitznamen El Chapo („der Kleine“) ist Herr Guzmán durch die vermutete $1 Milliarde, die er als Geschäftsführer des Sinaloa-Drogenkartells verdiente, ein von Lateinamerikas erfolgreichsten Exporteuren. Seitdem er 2001 versteckt in einem Wäschewagen aus dem Gefängnis ausbrach, gibt es wenige Fotos von El Chapo.

Andere Milliardäre verachten Herrn Guzmán. Aber im Vergleich zu manch anderen Entrepreneuren auf Mexikos Verzeichnis der Reichen scheint er die amerikanische Rezession gut überstanden zu haben. Zwar mögen seine Verhältnisse in seinem Versteck in den Bergen der Sierra Madre nicht besonders üppig sein, aber sein Vermögen soll unversehrt geblieben sein, trotz der Bemühungen der Wall-Street-Imbéciles, die 2009 die mexikanische Wirtschaft in die Knie zwangen. Ausgerüstet mit wenig mehr als einem Sprachführer und ein bisschen Imodium akut wanderte Schumpeter durch die Wüste, um zu erkundigen, welche Weisheiten die mexikanischen Drogenhändler anderen Geschäften zu bieten haben.

Dank der in Amerika immer niedriger werdenden Nachfrage für Drogen waren die letzten Zeiten nicht immer einfach für die Kartelle. Zwar gibt es die (aus Herr Guzmáns Perspektive) ermunternde Nachricht, dass immer mehr amerikanische Jugendliche aus Mexiko importierten Cannabis rauchen, aber das wertvollere Produkt Kokain gerät aus der Mode. Laut der UNO habe Amerika seine üble Gewohnheit zwischen 2006 und 2012 um ein Viertel verringert, und die Anzahl von Angestellten, die durch Kokainproben an der Arbeitsstelle durchfallen, sei ebenso um zwei Drittel gefallen.

Schwindende Verkäufe in el norte sind keine Einzigartigkeit des Drogengeschäftes. 2009 purzelten mehr als ein Viertel der amerikanische Einfuhr sämtlicher gesetzlich zulässigen Waren, wovon sowohl mexikanische Autofabriken als auch Drogenlabore betroffen waren. Aber verglichen mit den legitimen Geschäften sind die Kartelle viel geschickter in der Umstellung auf neue Märkte. Achtzig Prozent des legitimen Exports gehen an die Vereinigten Staaten, nur eine kleine Veränderung zu den 90% um die Jahrhundertwende. Demgegenüber schaltete der Kokainhandel auf Europa um, wo zweimal so viel Koks gebraucht wird als Ende der 90er. Der Durchschnittsbrite kauft jetzt mehr als der Durchschnittsamerikaner, obschon von niedriger Qualität. Mexikanische Händler kommen auch in Australian voran, noch ein aussichtsreiches Land.

Die Flexibilität der Drogenindustrie ist teilweise auf ihre Freistellung von Einfuhrabgaben zurückzuführen. Legitime mexikanische Händler genießen das Recht des freien Zugangs zu den amerikanischen und kanadischen Märkten durch das Nordamerikanisches Freihandelabkommens (NAFTA). Dagegen wird Drogenschmugglern dank des Einheitsübereinkommens der Vereinten Nationen über Suchtstoffe, die die Regelsetzung und Besteuerung ihrer Produkte untersagt, zollfreier Zugang zu allen Ländern der Welt gewährt. Lästige Ursprungsregeln, die viele mexikanische Hersteller hindern, ihre Waren in Amerika zu verkaufen, gelten dem in Mexiko verarbeiteten kolumbianischen Kokain nicht.

Zugegeben, das Verbot zwingt Rauschgifthändler dazu, ab und zu einen Tunnel zu graben, aber sie bleiben von anderen Problemen verschont. Die Liberalen in Kalifornien schlugen neulich vor, Herrn Guzmán und seine Kollegen mit bis zu $1 Milliarde pro Jahr mit Steuern zu belasten, durch die Legalisierung von Cannabis. Zum Glück für die Industrie stimmten die Konservativen für die Erhaltung eines steuerfreien Marihuanageschäftes. Behördenkram ist auch geringfügig. Obwohl in Amerika der Drogenkonsum jährlich eine Million Notaufnahmen verursacht, sehen Hersteller darin keinen Anlass, in Qualitätskontrolle zu investieren, denn die Strafe bleibt für das Einschmuggeln von sowohl purem als auch verunreinigtem Kokain dieselbe.

Seit 2007 töteten oder inhaftierten mexikanische Behörden viele der führenden Drogenentrepreneure. Im letzten Monat kündigten die Marinesoldaten die Verhaftung von Guzmáns Sohn, El Gordo („der Dicke“) genannt, an. Es stellte sich als eine Fehlmeldung heraus: der Inhaftierte war ein Autohändler namens Félix, wessen einziges Verbrechen es war, vollschlank zu sein. Solche Stümperei sieht man häufig. Wie in anderen Bereichen werden auch kompetente Behördenmitarbeiter von dem besseren Verdienst der Privatwirtschaft in Versuchung geführt. Viele Händler sind anfangs Polizisten. Die Zetasbande war früher eine Eliteeinheit der Armee.

Über das Abwerben (und Enthaupten)

Personal bleibt weiterhin ein Problem für die Kartelle, was angesichts der gewalttätigen Pensionierung von jährlich rund 10.000 Mitarbeitern keine Überraschung darstellt. Untere Arbeitsstellen werden leicht besetzt, aus dem zehnmillionenköpfigen Reservoir von ninis, Jugendliche die ni estudian ni trabajan (weder lernen, noch arbeiten). Aber die schlechte Lage mexikanischer Schulen (die schlechtesten der OECD) bedeutet, dass auch Drogenexporteure denselben Problemen wie andere Weltkonzerne gegenüberstehen: Das Anwerben hochqualifizierter Mitarbeiter. ManpowerGroup, ein Beratungsunternehmen im Bereich Personalbeschaffung, stellte fest, dass 42% der legitimen mexikanischen Firmen von Problemen bei der Stellenbesetzung berichten. Die Meisten berichten, sie müssten Einwanderer in Führungspositionen einstellen. Diese Situation gilt auch für das Drogengeschäft: Die Zetas wenden sich den ehemaligen Mitgliedern Guatemalas Kaibiles Sondereinheiten zu, um ihren wachsenden Bedarf an erfahrenen Killern zu stillen. Jedenfalls bleibt die Visumpflicht außen vor.

Die Beziehungen zur Öffentlichkeit sind ein heikles Thema für das Geschäft, das in Mexiko in den letzten 6 Jahren circa 60.000 Tote verursacht hat. Deswegen halten Kartellführer eine unternehmerische Gesellschaftsverantwortung für wichtig. Leitende Angestellte bleiben frei, zum Teil weil Leute nicht bereit sind, der Polizei einen Tipp zu geben. Angst ist ein Grund, ein zweiter liegt darin, dass die Drogenbarone ihren Gewinn gerne verteilen. Spenden an die örtliche Polizeimannschaft sind beliebt. Auffällige Philanthropie ist auch üblich. Im Bundesstaat Hidalgo errichtete eine glänzende Kapelle neulich eine Gedanktafel, die dem Geschäftsführer der Zetas, Heriberto Lazcano, für eine Spende dankt. Als dies für etwas Stirnrunzeln wegen „Drogenalmosen“ im Vatikan sorgte, entgegnete Ramón Godínez, ein mexikanischer Bischoff, dass als Maria Magdalena mit Parfüm die Füße Jesu waschte, fragte er sie nicht, wie sie dafür bezahlte. „Es gibt keinen Grund, Geld zu verbrennen, nur aufgrund seines bösen Ursprungs. Man muss es umwandeln. All Geld lässt sich umwandeln, genau so wie unsaubere Personen sich umwandeln lassen,“ so der Bischoff. Mit Gott als sein Geldwäscher, sollte die dreckigste Industrie Mexikos ihren hohen Kurs sicher halten können.

Translated from the original German (Ein schwarzer Engel des Zufalls)
By Oehmke, Philipp und Schmitter, Elke

Literature professor Manfred Schneider talks about the rationality and irrationality of killers, the paranoid psyche of western society, and its search for explanation

SPIEGEL: Herr Schneider, on 8th January 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head, and killed six other people at point blank range. And while the world agonises for an explanation, it is possible to find explained in your recent book, Das Attentat, that an assassin such as Loughner isn’t actually irrational, rather the product of hyperrationality. What do you mean by that?

Schneider: Every assassin is an acute observer and interpreter of signals and events. For him, nothing happens by chance; he scans the world for evil doings. He sees conspiracies everywhere. The result appears to us to be crazy and insane. However, at the same time it is precisely logic and reason running in overdrive, that lead to these paranoid conclusions. Paranoia isn’t a form of irrationality, but one of hyperrationality. Loughner is a typical example of this.

SPIEGEL: As if he had read your book.

Schneider: Yes, almost.

SPIEGEL: What is so typical about him?

Schneider: Firstly, subjectively, Loughner acted highly ethically. The paranoiac rescues the world from a threat. He disconnects his system of interpretation from everything else and creates inside this system a sense of order, which is no longer worrying for him. Secondly, Loughner left behind messages, which is always part of a rational assassination plan. We’re clearly dealing with a very thoroughly considered, well-planned mission. Thirdly, it was a political action. Insanity, which has uncountable forms of expression, takes on a political form in would-be assassins. Think about the video message in which he talked about the gold standard and currencies. These are elementary symbols of western society, which he wants to renew or exchange. It’s crazy, but it is an attempt to make contact with those in power.

SPIEGEL: What if Loughner hadn’t talked about gold and currencies, but instead about a new human being with three arms and four legs? Where does pure insanity start?

Schneider: With gibberish. When the only thing left is utter psychobabble. That’s one boundary. The other is that the fundament of paranoia is power. Paranoia isn’t a preoccupation with an illusion, as in the example you just gave.

SPIEGEL: At a public meeting in 2007, Loughner asked Congresswoman Giffords if she knew “why words mean what they mean”. Strangely, she apparently answered him in Spanish. Her inadequate response to his question is supposed to have deeply embittered Loughner.

Schneider: This fundamental doubt about our system is a consistently encountered symptom. The former soldier Denis Lortie, who stormed the Québec Parliament on 8th May, 1984, and arbitrarily opened fire on anything that moved, said in his messages before the event: “I want to destroy everything that wants to destroy language.” And Loughner is recorded to have said: “the government is controlling grammar.”

SPIEGEL: Is paranoia always destructive?

Schneider: Not necessarily. Consider the fabled Sherlock Holmes: he decyphers random signals better than anyone else, and is able to form the most shrewd suspicions from them. A scrap of paper here, a pile of cigar ash there. A class A paranoiac! But always acting for good.

SPIEGEL: But there is a difference. Holmes always draws the right conclusions.

Schneider: Loughner thought the same. But paranoiacs are missing self-reflection, the ability to verify. In terms of mental ability, this is the decisive flaw. An assassin like Loughner is always a lone warrior, whose suspicion will eventually turn into certainty. Without communicating and comparing with his surroundings, he starts to build a system of explanation for those things which worry and plague him.

SPIEGEL: But is it possible to tell if someone is a Holmes or a Loughner?

Schneider: That can be extremely difficult. For example: intelligence services operate along Holmes’ lines. But Colin Powell’s analysis in front of the UN Security Council in February 2003, according to which mobile biological weapons laboratories were being operated in Iraq, had the same structure as the delusions of Adelheid Streidel, who perilously injured Oskar Lafontaine in 1990 with a knife: she believed there were underground human killing factories in Wackersdorf.

SPIEGEL: The investigating sheriff in Tucson said soon after the attempt, that they were dealing with “a typical troubled individual, a loner.” That’s too simple, isn’t it?

Schneider: Certainly. But I also understand, how such an assumption comes about.

SPIEGEL: How?

Schneider: The assassin arrives like an arbitrary angel of darkness. Suddenly something inconceivable happens in our rational world, which fits in no model or explanation. That something terrible happens so randomly, however, is especially difficult for us to endure. And so that, in the case of Jared Lee Loughner, we don’t have to concede this, we search for causes which make the event logical and to some extent predictable.

SPIEGEL: For example with the prompt assertion that the assassin had read Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”.

Schneider: Exactly. But that doesn’t account for anything. Everyone hopes, however, that that’s the case. Loughner is also supposed to have been an adherent of the right-extremist conspiracy theorist David Wynn Miller. If that were the case, we’d have found something that reduces the danger. That is to say, we could theoretically have prevented the deed, and we can learn from this failure for the future. As far as the casual spectator is concerned, something went wrong, some security measures must have failed. We need a reason and we need a culprit.

SPIEGEL: What stops us from recognising that the assassination attempt was pure chance, unfathomable, crazy, mindless?

Schneider: We have to look for reasons when something terrible happens. Everything has its reason, that has been the fundamental principle of our rational way of thinking ever since the Enlightenment. And for the explanation as to why someone should attempt an assassination, we call on representatives of evil: Communism, Fascism or the media. These days new representatives are appearing on the horizon, the Muslim enemy as topical paranoid figure or the heinous bankers. Politics can’t afford to say: “Ah well, this financial crisis, it was just a case of hard lines!” No, they must explain that there were certain players who acted one way or another and thus precipitated certain results. Should this argument fail, however, being considered unbelievable, confusion and resentment ensue. If this takes on a paranoid form, then the assumption arises that there must be something working in the background, a bigger, secret plan, a dark conspiracy of the most evil forces. That is what I term paranoid reasoning, delusional but not abnormal reasoning. The assassin is paranoid.

SPIEGEL: Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are accused of being partly responsible for the atmosphere in the USA which led to such an attack. She denies, almost in your sense, the societal paranoid explanation attempt, and says that such attacks reflect only themselves, and are thus random.

Schneider: Trying to turn Palin into a culprit is naturally fallacious. Nevertheless even without drawing paranoid conclusions it is possible to recognise a mesh of coherences surrounding the attack which point towards Loughner. And the Republican fundamental polemic is part of this context. For example, in using the term “mind control”. This is the central paranoid notion of the American right, which assumes that the government controls the thoughts of its citizens through the language and media. Palin’s call to see the attack as an isolated incident, i.e. pure chance, is paradoxical, since she thus suddenly resigns from the system of paranoia – catchword “Mind Control” – that she and the Tea Party have set up.

SPIEGEL: Is it not curious that attacks, paranoia and renunciation of change spread most particularly in those places where voter participation, open information and permeability are of the highest order, i.e. in western democracies?

Schneider: That has been statistically proven. The more open and transparent the system, the stronger the suspicion that something unseen is directing affairs in the background.

SPIEGEL: In which case WikiLeaks would also be a would-be assassin in the sense of paranoid reason?

Schneider: WikiLeaks is driven by the same paranoid craving to throw light into the darkest of corners and wrest every last secret from those in power. This contains its own paradox, since the makers of WikiLeaks also rely on secrecy. They must protect their informants, in doing which they create their own mysteries and bearers of secrets, which may in turn lead to new groupings and new suspicions.

SPIEGEL: Many of the signals and signs in which paranoiacs see meaning noticeably stem from literature and cinema.

Schneider: Would-be assassins are intensive users of media. The media is the source of their suspicion, and at the same time it empowers the fierce hankering to appear in precisely these media. John Hinckley, who in 1981 attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, was a film buff. Hinckley was particularly impressed by Martin Scorsese’s film “Taxi Driver”, and began to stalk the then 13-year-old Jodie Foster. He wrote her poems and sent her numerous letters. Of course these remained unanswered. In a letter to the New York Times, he then wrote the terrible sentence: “The shooting was the greatest love offering in the history of the world.” This insignificant, unhappy, miserable little guy thought in such world historical dimensions. It was his dream to live in the White House with Jodie Foster.

SPIEGEL: And Ronald Reagan was obviously in the way. But doesn’t this would-be assassin negate your theory about paranoid reason? In this case we really can’t talk about reason.

Schneider: Au contraire. He knew the whole history of assassination. He knew about those who went before him and had in some way identified with them. It was clear to him what would happen after his actions, that pictures of him would appear and circle the world in a day. He understood that he would move from the invisible to the visible. And he would soon be with the woman he adored. To move from the world of the invisible to the visible is a strong motivator.

SPIEGEL: Which assassin interests you in particular?

Schneider: Mark David Chapman is one, the attacker who shot John Lennon. Not that I have particular sympathy for him, but his fate is moving and staggering. He believed to have read his own story in J. D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”. Immediately after the attack, while Lennon still lay bleeding in the corridor of the Dakota Building, he grabbed the book and started to read it again. Chapman also spoke from synchronicities, which confirmed his decision to commit the attack.

SPIEGEL: By synchronicity you mean events, which actually have nothing to do with one another, but are nevertheless seen to be connected?

Schneider: The term comes from C. G. Jung and means the correlation of events which are ostensibly purely random. For example, the man who sold the murder weapon to Chapman in Honolulu was called Ono, like Lennon’s wife. When Chapman picked up a magazine on his flight to New York, John Lennon was on the cover. There was a whole series of such details, which he perceived as synchronicities and which rationally strengthened his resolve: it’s obvious, I have my mandate. “I had to do it,” that’s a sentence which often comes from assassins.

SPIEGEL: The prototypical assassin in your analysis is Brutus, one of Caesar’s murderers. Was this man paranoid?

Schneider: Certainly not in the clinical sense. But he, like his co-conspirators, entertained the basic suspicion that Caesar wanted to become king. That would have meant the death of the republic. Sure, Caesar had asserted that he didn’t want the crown, but based on their interpretation of his behaviour, the conspirators drew the opposite conclusion.

SPIEGEL: They followed their suspicions.

Schneider: The would-be assassin is always first an interpreter: of facts and figures, gestures, sentences or silence. Brutus’ case is indeed so interesting and is discussed even today, because there were comprehensible reasons for murdering Caesar. Dante placed him in hell, but Brutus has always had adherents, from Cicero to the present, his reputation is almost immaculate.

SPIEGEL: When does a mistrustful stance or perception turn into paranoia?

Schneider: When all of the non-rational moments which belong to reason fall away, then it becomes pathological. When there is no longer any doubt in thinking, no delay in acting. When empathy is no longer possible and the feeling becomes established, that this or that must be done under any circumstances in order to prevent something terrible: then the person is no longer acting paranoiac but paranoid.

SPIEGEL: But what about someone like Georg Elser, who made out to kill Hitler? You surely can’t talk about paranoia there.

Schneider: In this case it wasn’t the assassin who was paranoid, but his opposite number, Hitler as well as a large proportion of German society. It is certainly possible, Stalinism is evidence enough, that the majority of a group can share an irrational, delusional position.

SPIEGEL: You provide Sherlock Holmes as an example of a so-called healthy paranoia. Is the detective our doctor for acute cases of ‘randomness intolerance’?

Schneider: Definitely. He annihilates randomness, because he can read something logical in otherwise apparently random indices. We delegate our hope to criminal heroes like him, to investigators and policemen, our hope that it is possible to recognise and fight evil.

SPIEGEL: You call the would-be assassin the “arbitrary angel of darkness”. He’s invisible, comes out of the blue like Loughner or the school shooters of Columbine, he wreaks havoc by killing apparently at random.

Schneider: The randomness is routine. Sebastian B., the school shooter from Emsdetten, regarded the Columbine killer Eric Harris as a god, and Dylan Klebold, Harris’ friend, considered himself to be “some kind of god”. None of these young men – the typical killer is male and around 20 years old – was crazy or moronic. Through their actions they played god, they were daemons of fortune. The pretension of being able to decide life and death over any person for a few hours or minutes bestowed upon them the utmost elation. One of the last entries in Dylan Klebold’s diary was “have fun!”

SPIEGEL: And how does this bear with Islamic suicide bombers?

Schneider: It’s different to the Loughners and school shooters, who sense the inescapability of their actions via paranoid thought processes. These radical believers get their decision to act from a third party. They live in the collective paranoid conviction that nothing happens that isn’t God’s will. They also act for a recognisable reason. Their appearance on 11th September, 2001 was for our world the most extreme case of randomness: unpredictable, terrible, simply incomprehensible. But politically, the wish to teach our system a lesson in uncertainty lay behind it. That is something you actually can’t defeat. It’s the attempt to spread paranoia in our society. Their actions, however, have a reason, which we have learned to understand in the meantime. It’s no longer a paranoid incident, and that has an advantage.

SPIEGEL: Which?

Schneider: In the meantime we have developed a pretty good picture of the typical suicide bomber. There’s a phenotype, around which the investigators orient themselves. The attackers of 11th September were unforeseeable, but ten years on their would-be successors no longer have this advantage. We know enough about this type of person to be able to be act to prevent them.

SPIEGEL: Herr Schneider, thank you for this interview.

The interview was conducted by editors Philipp Oehmke and Elke Schmitter.

[Image ©European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari]

Außerdem schien es der Maler mißzuverstehen, warum K. nur am Bettrand blieb, er bat vielmehr, K. möchte es sich bequem machen und ging, da K. zögerte, selbst hin und drängte ihn tief in die Betten und Polster hinein.

Franz Kafka, Der Prozeß

Ignoring for a second changes in the use of the ß, most learners of German would assume from this sentence the word missverstehen should be a separable verb. That is to say the painter seemed misszuverstehen and not zu missverstehen. As a result, you’d be forgiven for thinking that were the painter to misunderstand something K. said, Kafka would write:

*Der Maler verstand ihn miss.

A thread on the WordReference language forums brings some more light to the situation:

Die Verwendung von missverstehen ist schwankend bezüglich der Trennbarkeit (der Duden charakterisiert das Verb als unregelmäßig). In finiter Form wird es in der Regel untrennbar verwandt:
Er missverstand ihn
Die Variante
*Er verstand ihn miss
ist ungewöhnlich und gilt meines Wissens auch als standardsprachlich inkorrekt.

Der Infinitiv mit zu wird aber von vielen Sprechern so gebildet, als sei missverstehen trennbar aber von nicht wenigen Sprechern auch so, als sei das Verb nicht trennbar. Entsprechend ist sowohl zu missverstehen oder misszuverstehen anzutreffen.

Meines Wissens ist misszuverstehen die standardsprachlich vorgezogene Form; die Variante zu missverstehen würde ich aber ebenfalls als standardsprachlich korrekt ansehen.

So missverstehen is simply irregular, having both separable and inseparable verb properties. In particular, the infinitive with zu is more commonly formed as if the verb were separable, but finding it used otherwise as a separable verb is much rarer.

Finally, here’s the Duden Online entry, which includes an example of the ‘jokingly colloquial’ separable variant.

miss­ver­ste­hen

Wortart: unregelmäßiges Verb

eine Aussage, eine Handlung [unbeabsichtigt] falsch deuten, auslegen

Beispiele

• jemanden, etwas missverstehen
• sie missversteht mich absichtlich
• du hast mich, meine Frage missverstanden
• die Bemerkung war nicht misszuverstehen
• er fühlt sich missverstanden
• (umgangssprachlich scherzhaft) verstehen Sie mich bitte nicht miss (verstehen Sie mich nicht falsch)
• eine nicht misszuverstehende (eine eindeutige) Handbewegung

Trotzdem K. gerade jetzt nicht daran gedacht hatte, sagte er sofort: “Gewiss, ich muss fortgehn. Ich bin Prokurist einer Bank, man wartet auf mich, ich bin nur hergekommen, um einem ausländischen Geschäftsfreund den Dom zu zeigen.”
Franz Kafka, Der Prozeß

I’d only ever heard trotzdem used in a main sentence, and never before to form a verb-shunting Nebensatz. I figured at first this might be a mistake on the part of the publishers–my copy was of rather low-budget quality–and that the word obwohl had been intended, but the form repeated itself a number of times throughout the book.

A quick bit of Google research later revealed that this form is perfectly common in the Randregionen of the German language, particularly in Bohemia and in Alpine areas, and used as a matter of course by authors such as Kafka, Stifter and Dürrenmatt. This older thread on wer-weiss-was.de has a great explanation, explaining that the form arose as a contraction of the now old-fashioned trotz dem, dass, and further points out that the form is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable.

Duden’s entry on the matter.

trotz|dem

Bedeutung

obwohl, obgleich

Beispiel

er kam, trotzdem (standardsprachlich: obwohl) er krank war

Herkunft

entstanden aus: trotz dem, dass …

Now to find out why the version of the text published here replaces these forms of trotzdem with the word obwohl. And why in my copy Kafka never capitalised the word gewiss even at the start of sentences.

Extravagant spam

A topic I’ve previously written about has lately become something of a pain, to such an extent that I’ve actually decided to change my way of dealing with it. Whilst I could certainly complain that the number of spam messages on this blog far exceeded those few genuine comments (by a factor of several hundred), glancing over the list of catches once a week, it didn’t take all that long to weedle out the very occasional piece of ham incorrectly identified by Akismet as ‘spiced’.

Unfortunately, in recent months the deluge seems to have increased. This blog has seen almost as much spam in the last three months as in the whole of 2010. Even a cursory scan over the pages of detritus has become chore enough that I’m no longer willing to bother.¹ Added to which, rumours are abound of Akismet changing its free nature, only fair given how much traffic they must receive, and the search for an adequate free replacement could take some time.

So instead and at least in the short term, I’m just going to go about disabling comments on those posts which accrue the most unwanted attention. There are currently just a few posts which seem to be targeted heavily by the spambots, so I’ll soon see if this makes an impact on the figures. Otherwise I might simply switch to a general policy of switching off comments on all posts of a certain age, as many other blogs do. For the occasional interesting slices of ham this blog gets, closing the window after a certain period really won’t make much of a difference.

And on a slightly related side-note, here’s proof that spammers will find and target anything. Spammers are just like young boys with their genders: if there’s a box, they’ll put their details into it.

[Photo courtesy of The Other Dan]

1. What made the situation worse is that I installed the IntenseDebate plugin, which at the moment doesn’t seem to handle Akismet spam in any intelligent way, instead leaving the comments hidden and requiring the user to disable the plugin to clean out the spam each time.

Slightly confusing argument to start with, but this comic provokes enough argument for legal eagles and philosophising owls alike. Would the three go down for attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder? Would Alp get sentenced for manslaughter for being the last one out of the room and apparently the one to finally turn the key? Should Aaron take the blame for ultimately removing the water, the pre-meditated poison going unused? Did Harold commit suicide by being so dopey about sitting around in there with just a bottle of water in the first place? Could Alp get committed for being so loopy as to drill several holes in a bottle after confusing sand and water?

Sadly, however, rather little to do with the real question of free will!

The highlight of the prize-giving ceremony was to be the awarding of the Breeder’s Achievement Award, conferred upon the breeder who had in the eyes of the panel done the most for his or her chosen breed in the course of the year. Whilst Geoffrey was not short-listed for it, he had been given what in his view was an honour greater than the prize itself: that of supplying the model for the so-called AilurOscar, a gold-plated, life-sized cast replica of last year’s champion. Said model, a superb Burmese specimen by the name of Mystique, had been put into a narcosis and taken to the sculptors just a few days earlier, and should have been returned with the unveiling of the prize. The latter now stood gleaming on the prize-winners’ table, but of Mystique there was no sign.

As the day wore on, it eventually came for the prizes to be awarded, the judges having had sufficient time to make their decisions on the vast quantity of fur and claws they had seen that day. Geoffrey started to get particularly agitated that he still hadn’t seen his cat, especially when he noticed the sculptor sidle into the room and take up a place at the back of the crowd, without word or sign of Mystique in tow. His agitation soon took effect on Chapman who, more suo, decided to take the bull by the horns and demand an explanation. Rather pale in the face, he returned.

“Well,” prompted Geoffrey, after waiting patiently for Chapman to begin, “where’s Mystique?”

“I’m afraid our friend over there seems to have gotten the wrong end of the stick about your instructions, dear boy,” came the stammered reply. “He took it that your feline companion was in something, well, far deeper than a narcosis, and the prize was to double as something of a sarcophagus.”

Geoffrey was aghast; his mouth working like a fish, he eventually sputtered out his disbelief. Chapman assured him he wasn’t tugging on anyone’s appendages.

“You mean that little statuette is my Mystique?” came the blurted response, to which Chapman nodded in affirmation. “But this is an absolute disaster!”

“I think,” offered the till-now silent Keats politely, “you mean a catastrophy.”

I write better when it’s dark

Not in the dark but when it’s dark. Whether it’s because that’s when I’m at my most lucid, or perhaps because the tiredness helps me overcome my inhibitions, the small hours have often been when I’m at my most productive. In fact, the idea for this very post was sketched at 5am one very idle night, when the neural aurorae kept me from dropping off. The ideas hop and flow and melt into one another like chocolate on a hot stove—and there’s never a pen around when you need it.

I wish so much to be creative

Not in any specific fashion either. Regardless of method, there’s always been something itching inside, scratching the back of my retina, urging me to put the effort and dedication into creating something I can be proud of, whether it be with the pen or the paintbrush, the camera or the chisel. Sadly, there’s a rather stunting lack of any raw talent, which leaves for disappointment every which way I turn. And more pertinently, I’m too much of a lazy sod to ever practice enough at anything to actually hone those blunt and crooked tools in my head to produce something worth being proud of.

I put it all off for later

As the proverb has it:

“Ther is an old proverbe,” quod she, “seith that ‘the goodnesse that thou mayst do this day, do it, and abide nat ne delaye it nat til tomorwe.‘ And therfore I conseille that ye sende youre messages, swiche as been discrete and wise, unto youre adversaries, tellynge hem on youre bihalve that if they wole trete of pees and of accord, that they shape hem withouten delay or tariyng to comen unto us.”

The Tale of Melibee, Geoffrey Chaucer

Sadly, however old this proverb may be, it’s still one to have had the meagrest effect on my genes. Putting it all off for ‘when I have more time’ has virtually become my sport of profession. This very post is testament to the fact, which according to Wordpress was started back in September of the last year. There are always more hours in a day, more days in the week, more weeks in the year, more years in a lifetime, in that concave vortex of my temporal perception.

I never finish what I start

My life and living spaces are littered with the unfinished. Books half-read, films half-watched, stories half-written, designs half-cooked.¹ What starts with good intentions soon ends up unloved, disregarded, unashamedly shunned for something else; if in fact it should ever get started in the first place. It is probably telling that for every book I read, there are two on the shelf; for every moment spent on writing, there are a thousand spent on the waiting-to-be-draughted.

I have a passion for procrastination

When time eventually does land in my lap, like a giant rainbow trout fresh out of water, I find myself less inclined to take the beast by the shanks, to scale it, bone it, fillet it, eat it, nor even to take pity on it, to rescue it, cover it, take it back to water. Instead I watch it flap about and squirm and shake, with gaping mouth and aching gills, its precious moments dying fast, its glassy eyes bright to the last. Don’t ask me where that came from. I’m just wasting time when I should best be getting on with some work.

I put effort in where it is wasted

Perhaps this is entirely linked to procrastinating, however much I don’t like to acknowledge it. Putting effort in to wasted time means that no one can judge you for not trying–and since it is wasted nor will they judge what your efforts produce. All of which doesn’t detract from the fact that all my efforts lie in the wrong place. I write on forums no one visits. I author blog posts no one reads. I soliloquise at length as though there were a fourth wall on my life.² Those portions of my life wreak of effort, which remain unseen, unheard, unused, unwanted. And to the detriment of that public face, which has a degree in every volume of inadequacy.

I was born in the wrong century

Perhaps not technically something I hate about myself, this probably has more to do with my believing the grass is greener on the other side. But looking at my recent forebears, I nevertheless feel I’d have been more at peace with life wielding a pick in my hands as a coal miner, or with a mattock slung over my shoulder as a navvy, than I am in this fast-paced world of gadgets and gizmos. Not that I look back on history through rose-tinted spectacles, but knowing my place in the gutter I abhor the society that doesn’t agree that I belong there.

I have a superficial interest in the world

Just a quick glance at my bookshelf is enough to testify to how scatterbrained I really am. There’s no direction, no taste, no depth, no concentration. Just an eclectic mix of all kinds. Perhaps that’s a good thing, having a desire to sample all of life’s waters. On the other hand it shows how utterly superficial my interest in the world is, and that surface-skating translates itself nattily into real life. No real wonder I never finish what I start, when I barely get started on anything.

I eat too much

Difficult to believe for those who know me, easier to believe for those who know me well, I don’t just restrict myself to food in saying I eat too much. My life sometimes feels like an exercise in waste, a product of the consumer society, for all that I wish it would be otherwise. Food, electricity; water, most especially water. It’s probably already too late to make up for the squandery with an early adieu, but if anything here could or should change, this is the one to work on.

I’m merely waiting for the end

There was sadly no choice about being born, or if there was, I’m sure I ticked the other box. Were we assigned to lead our lives on the basis of previous errors? If so, as in the real world, I must have discarded the manual in favour of just getting to grips with the controls. Yet however much fun that experience can be, I still firmly believe that had I been given a conscious choice, I’d have declined this mortal coil. Whatever impression I give others, I really just spend my days wandering through life, looking for the exit.

I know all this and do nothing

For all those keeping track, yes this is the eleventh sin, but it’s easy to think up more once you start to enumerate them all.³ Perhaps this isn’t really such a thing I hate, as much as an acknowledgement of reality. I can’t change. I won’t change. These flaws and failures are simply part of who I am. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. But that has meant I’ve learned to live with it.

1. Sometimes even dinners half-cooked.
2. But even were I a Shakespearean character, I’d be a Dogberry.
3. I only hope I shan’t make the same mistake as Charles Freck on my taking leave.

On their arrival there, they discovered that his institution at the school had provoked a little wave of anti-English sentiment in the village, with his demands that the pupils talk ‘proper’ English, none of this uneducated Scots drivel. Partly as a result of his estrangement by the village community, their friend had rather taken somewhat to the produce of the local distillery.

One morning during their stay, hoping to catch a glimpse of their pal in his element at the school, Keats and Chapman set off down the road from the inn. On their journey they began to meet an increasingly dense trickle of schoolchildren which, it not even being noon and in the middle of the school day, they found rather odd. The trickle of pupils turned gradually into a stream as they neared the school, and they arrived to find their friend locking up the school door.

“What the devil does he think he’s doing at this time?” exported Chapman.

“It seems pretty obvious to me,” retorted Keats with a slight wave of his hand, “er macht die Schotten dicht.”

After much headscratching and searching through forums, I eventually discovered that you can prevent Windows automatically presenting you with the login screen after a few minutes of inactivity by reenabling the screensaver, providing an extraordinarily large number and unchecking the On resume, require logon checkbox. No more interrupted video viewing!

“You know, I find it hard to believe that they’re ready to start rebuilding their cities so soon after the nukes,” remarked Chapman. “According to the papers, those Pashtuns are about ready to announce a new name for their capital.”

“Indeed, and I’ve got a wager with the landlord as to the name they’ll announce.” Chapman looked on, flummoxed. “Why, what else could they call it?” continued Keats, “New Kabul.”

My first port of call was to use Thorsten Hartmann‘s th23 Domain mod, which enables users to log in to your forum from different domains. The mod is no longer being updated, but I can confirm that I have it running with the current version of phpBB (3.0.8). As long as your two (or more) domains or addresses point to the same location, this mod should allow the user to access the forum as if he’d used the default address. In fact, with a little php wizardry at your disposal, you could use the mod as the basis for having your forum displayed differently depending on the web address used.

After making sure I had the forum running currently from two addresses, I then did the standard thing and followed the official guide to moving your forum over at phpbb.com. You may be able to skip certain sections of that guide depending on whether or not you are actually moving server.

Updating links

Once your forum is working correctly under the new domain, one final alteration you may need to make would be to update all those backlinks in your forum posts to point to the right place. Simply run the following SQL queries (using phpMyAdmin or otherwise), replacing the addresses OldDomain.com/forums and NewDomain.com/forums with your relevant old and new forum web addresses.

UPDATE phpbb_posts SET post_text = replace(post_text,  'www.OldDomain.com/forums',  'www.NewDomain.com/forums');
UPDATE phpbb_posts SET post_text = replace(post_text, 'www.OldDomain.com/forums', 'www.NewDomain.com/forums');

You may need to run this twice if you also allowed access to your forum via a different subdomain (e.g. both OldDomain.com/forums and www.OldDomain.com/forums). And whilst not strictly necessary, the same principal can be applied to updating backlinks in private messages and forum signatures.

UPDATE phpbb_privmsgs SET message_text = replace(post_text,  'www.OldDomain.com/forums',  'www.NewDomain.com/forums');
UPDATE phpbb_privmsgs SET message_text = replace(post_text, 'www.OldDomain.com/forums', 'www.NewDomain.com/forums');
UPDATE phpbb_users SET user_sig = replace(post_text,  'www.OldDomain.com/forums',  'www.NewDomain.com/forums');
UPDATE phpbb_users SET user_sig = replace(post_text, 'www.OldDomain.com/forums', 'www.NewDomain.com/forums');

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