Springtime in Germany.....

Thursday AM, Stuttgart

 Damen und Herren,

 Guten morgen from Shtupgart…ehhh, I mean Stuttgart….  where men are men and Mercedes is the vehicle of choice.  And where everyone knows what you mean when you tell them you’re a faygeleh.  Jah!

 Connected through Amsterdam this morning, so spent an hour trekking through the impossibly immense Schiphol airport.  Since business is slow, BobOnARoll travels in coach these days.  I know I know.  Hard to imagine this Jewish prince in the back of the bus, but it’s really quite comfortable if you enjoy working on your computer screen at a 60 degree angle and don’t mind the few crumbs they fling at you from the rear galley every few hours.  

On the New York to Amsterdam leg of the trip, I was treated to a trio of Dutch ‘acrobats’ in the row ahead of me---a (quite) large and unattractive 50-something father on the aisle seat directly in front of me, traveling with his wife and daughter (I presume), who egressed to the rear lavatories by climbing up and onto the seat rests and scampering over Big Daddy, only to repeat the act on the way back in.  Big Daddy, when he does rise, plops back into his seat with such force that tray tables are shaking 3 rows back.  My oh my.  Well, at least my seatmates have better bladder control----and I really prefer to stand up to let them pass as opposed to risking a human being crashing down onto my lap and laptop.

The Dutch are tall people, no two ways about it.  Even the women tower over me----as I learned when I looked straight up into the eyes of the gate attendant who inspected my ticket before boarding the Shtupgart flight.  I am remembering an article from The New Yorker several years back about changes in national height metrics over the last 200 years.  Will have more to write about on that topic in a later post. 

Downloaded the NY Times and WS Journal to my Kindle before we took off last night.  Although, as an old media dinosaur, I still prefer the physical paper to the digital edition, I enjoy reading the newspaper on the Kindle, especially when I’m schlepping my office on my back and prefer not to carry two full newspapers in addition to everything else.  Anyway, I caught up with the news about ex-Governor Blago, soon to be ex-governor Patterson, and the Minnesota Senate race drama.  The NYT piece today described how Minnesota incumbent Republican Norm Coleman straps on his tefillin every morning and recites the Jewish morning prayers, presumably for soothing ritual as well as supplication for victory from the Almighty God.  OK, that’s nice, but, Norm, got news for you---I think the Almighty is shining his benevolence upon the Democrats this year.  Time to unwrap and call this race a wrap and get on with the people’s business.  Whaddayasay?

A grey shadow over the Obamites coming from CIA reports that interrogation practices we abhorred during the Bush years may continue to be authorized under Barack.  Must be a reporting error, huh?…tell us it ain’t so, puhleez.