Angelika/Mike Schilli |
Michael Americans find the typical swimwear worn by German tourists hilarious. I was not aware of this fact for a long time and often went swimming in the typical German and tight swimsuits, called "speedos" here in America. I received many strange looks.
What I didn't know was that heterosexual Americans never wear anything skimpier than boxershorts. Anything else may be fashionable on hot days at Dolores Park in San Francisco, where the toned men of the gay scene bask in the sun. But it would never occur to the average American to wear a tight-fitting swimsuit.
Also, even the shorts for men are longer in the US than in Europe. For heterosexual men, it's almost all the way to the knee, if not longer. I would draw the line at a hand's breadth above the knee. In San Francisco's Castro district, around our corner, you can also often see slightly more revealing clothing pieces, like hotpants, but only for those who like it!
In predominantly American-populated tourist destinations such as Hawaii, where few Germans wander, it is a hilarious sight to observe self-confidently striding typically-German (tm) in speedos on the beach who have not yet gotten the memo! Even Linux creator Linus Torvalds, who has been living in America for a long time, seems to be unaware of this fact, as the pictures from the Linus Dunk prove. Granted, it's not easy to figure this out coming from Germany. But once you have, it's quite hilarious!
Angelika Europeans have always scoffed at the fat Americans. That 2/3 of the American population struggles with being overweight and 1/3 are medically considered obese is no secret here in the USA either.
Nowadays, there are increasingly fatter children because kids eat too much fast food and hang out in front of the TV and computer for hours. That children develop juvenile diabetes due to bad eating habits can almost be called a trend. Desperate parents therefore initially tried to sue McDonald's, since the fast food chain did not clearly warn of the health risks of its product range. This typical American way of dragging everyone to court still seems absurd to us.
Even the diet craze is not new. Every American book store has an impressive selection of books that are meant to help reduce excessive pounds. Then there are the various talk shows that present dramatic success stories: people who suddenly fit into their old pants three times, smiling happily into the camera. Lately, you can also find entertainment shows in which a whole group fights their excessive weight together and is accompanied by television cameras for months.
There is no shortage of theories as to why Americans are gaining more and more weight. There is a preference for large portions and fast food. Unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food (which is true). No time to cook healthier meals, lack of exercise, too much fat in the meals, too many carbohydrates. And on the packaging of each product, there are indications of calories, carbohydrates, etc. printed - but these always refer to a so-called "serving size", not to the entire package. So if someone eats the whole bag of chips, they wonder why they are consuming ten times the amount of calories!
The fear of high fat content in food led to a boom in reduced-fat products here. In every American supermarket you can find low-fat chips, cookies and the like. It happens to me from time to time that I grab the wrong - reduced-fat - bag. A misery, because the stuff simply tastes artificial and usually ends up in the trash can with us. My motto is: When eating chips, then the right ones.
But I always get the real crisis when standing in front of the shelf with the dairy products. You almost need telepathic abilities to find the full-fat yoghurt or the full-fat milk. There is usually only one kind of the "full-fat variant". Everything else is low-fat or non-fat. Now I know that this trend has now also infected Germany. I just pray fervently that my German favorite potato chips will be spared.
For some time now, America has been in the second phase of its fight against obesity. No longer is fat the focus of the debate, but rather the "evil" carbohydrates. The blame for this lies with American doctor Robert Atkins, who more than 30 years ago caused nutritionists around the world to scoff at his low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. Atkins assumes that the consumption of carbohydrates stimulates insulin production, which can not only lead to stronger feelings of hunger but also to fat storage. On the other hand, if one abstains from bread, pasta, rice and highly sugary drinks, etc., the body will in turn burn fat.
Critics of the Atkins diet don't necessarily dispute this, but they are disturbed by the allowed consumption of foods with a high fat content due to the increased risk of heart disease. However, the fact is that most people lose weight with Atkins. Many nutritionists, however, attribute the weight loss to the reduced calorie intake under the Atkins diet.
Nevertheless: Atkins has been on everyone's lips for the past 2-3 years. I know some followers of the diet, which you can always tell because there is no bread on their plate. The popularity of this low-carbohydrate diet was not affected by the death of Robert Atkins in 2003, which was accompanied by malicious rumors. It was rumored that Atkins was overweight at the time of his death and had a few extra pounds.
In any case, the pragmatic American businessmen smell ringing cash registers with the Atkins fans. Several restaurant and fast food chains have already adapted to these customers. So there are Atkins-friendly menus at "Subway" and "TGI Friday's" ("Thank God it's Friday). For example, the New York steak with blue cheese crumbles is only 6 carbohydrates at TGI Friday's. From now on, customers at Burger King can also happily bite into a hamburger without a bun, the minced meat patty is held together by a lettuce leaf.
Even manufacturers of various spirits are now advertising that their high-proof distillates contain no carbohydrates! In addition, more and more products with reduced carbohydrate content are quietly and secretly entering American supermarkets. According to the magazine Consumer Reports, there are now 930 such products on the American market: beer, ice cream, cookies, cake - everything the heart desires. They then have such nice names like "Atkins Endulge" or "Carb Smart".
Even Coca-Cola is coming out with a new cola variety this summer that contains fewer carbohydrates. Usually, sugar is replaced by sugar alcohols or fermented carbohydrates, which allegedly stimulate insulin production in the body less than regular sugar. The packaging of the "low-carb" (=low carbohydrate) products then advertises how many carbohydrates are hidden in the product, although the current American food law does not yet define what is considered low.
Generally, few carbohydrates in a product does not necessarily mean few calories. The idea that it is okay to indulge in low-carb cookies does not hold up. What I find interesting about the whole carbohydrate story is that the country is again following the motto "all or nothing". Americans tend to be a bit extreme in this regard. We already saw this in the fight against smokers in California (now you can't even smoke on the beach in Santa Monica). And once they had set their sights on the enemy "carbohydrates", there was no stopping them.
Michael "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." This is the official motto of the United States Postal Service (no joke!). The motto is borrowed from the ancient Greeks, 430 BC. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote this sentence about the riding messengers of Xerxes, the King of Persia.
Mail carriers don't enjoy the best reputation here in America. In the TV series "Seinfeld," the mailman "Newman" always calls in sick when it rains, hides bags of undelivered mail in the basement, and claims that zip codes are meaningless.
But it has nevertheless amazing features: So a letter that does not weigh more than 2 ounces (32g) costs only 37 cents, no matter where to be delivered in the entire USA, even to Hawaii or Alaska. For heavier shipments, price depends on the distance to be covered.
In Figure 6 you can see typical American mailboxes. They are not locked, anyone can open the flap. When the postman comes, he opens the flap and puts the mail in.
In inner cities, there are also often mailboxes that look like their German counterparts, but are simply holes in the wall, and the mail simply falls inside the house after being dropped in.
In suburbs or rural areas, the mailman drives through the area in a right-hand-steered car. Cars with the steering wheel on the right side are usually only found in countries with left-hand traffic, but this special construction has the advantage in the US that the mailman can pull up to the right side and throw the mail into the mailbox without getting out of the car. Sitting on the right side in the front of the car, however, he can hardly see to the left in the back, and therefore the mail car has several oversized mirrors so that the driver can safely drive the monster from mailbox to mailbox.
With the booming eBay phenomenon, more and more people are sending their junk, which others have bid on in auctions, by mail. The usually antiquated-looking USPS has come up with something new: on the internet, on the website usps.com, you can create a mailing label with a barcode, print it out on paper or self-adhesive labels with your home printer, and pay with a credit card right away. You have to specify the exact weight and dimensions of the package, and the USPS website shows how much postage it costs. Up to one pound it's $4.50, up to two pounds it's $8.50 for the farthest distances within America.
With the label available through the new service, which has a printed tracking number, you can then track it on the Internet to see where the package is and if the lucky recipient has already received it. And USPS version of the originally genius service invented by the private delivery company UPS doesn't cost a cent more!
If you then drop off the package at the post office, you don't have to queue up, but just slide it to the next clerk, because everything is already done. Or, you just give it to the postman who is currently delivering the mail in the neighborhood. By the way, this is common in America: The mailman not only delivers mail, but also takes freshly stamped new mail. In big cities this is rather unknown, because the postmen are totally stressed there, but in rural areas it is quite normal to put the sent mail in the tube-shaped own mailbox and bend up the red signal as shown in Figure 6. Before the mailman then puts in the delivered mail, he takes out the freshly stamped one that has been prepared there and later hands it in at the post office.
For heavier packages, the "Ground" services of private delivery companies like UPS and Fedex are cheaper than the US Postal Service. Instead of sending it by plane, heavy cargo is sent by "Ground" shipping, i.e. by truck across the continent, and can be tracked with a tracking number to see how the heavy iron is carted through the individual states. A real thrill! For example, I once sold a 50 lbs computer printer on Ebay to a gentleman in New York City, who paid the 39 dollar Fedex postage without complaint, and after a week and 3000 miles by truck, received the printer intact.
Michael In the USA, the financial activities of every citizen are closely monitored by three private companies: Equifax, Trans Union and Experion. I mentioned this briefly in Rundbrief 05/2001. When you open a bank account, apply for a credit card, or take out a loan for a house -- bam! a notification goes to the three. On the other hand, when you apply for a job with a company or show interest in renting a new apartment -- bam! the company or landlord will ask the three about your financial situation.
Moreover, the three of them learn from every small mistake: If one forgets to transfer the monthly payment to the credit card company just once, it will immediately be prominently displayed in the "Credit Report". If one has 10 credit cards, two leased cars and has financed 3 houses over the last 10 years, like the average American, this report will quickly become confusing.
Since Americans like to keep things simple, financial companies like "Fair Isaac" generate a so-called "Credit Score", a number between 300 and 850 that indicates a person's creditworthiness. The higher the score, the better: 300 indicates a notorious bankrupt, whom nobody would trust. However, from 720 onwards, banks swarm around the customer like moths to a light, this number distinguishes carefully operating people whose transactions have been recorded for some time and have never shown irregularities.
When someone wants to buy a house and applies for a loan, the bank employee goes to the computer, retrieves the score and then offers the customer the interest rate according to an internal table, similar to the following:
Credit Score | Interest Rate |
---|---|
720-850 | 5.73% |
700-719 | 5.83% |
675-699 | 6.39% |
620-674 | 7.30% |
560-619 | 8.66% |
500-559 | 9.10% |
It pays off, therefore, to keep one's "Credit Report" in order and to know one's "Score", which could translate into actual money. For Germans who have recently moved to the USA, the Credit Report is simply empty, and it is not so easy to apply for a credit card or to rent an apartment.
The "Credit Report" is kept under the Social Security Number (SSN) of a person. Every American has one. It consists of 9 digits, in the format XXX-XX-XXXX. It accompanies one throughout life, almost everyone knows it by heart. As an immigrant, one is assigned an SSN when registering with the Social Security Administration in the USA with a valid work visa (see Rundbrief 01/1997).
The SSN should be kept secret, because it also serves for identification of a person. For example, when I call my bank, the automated voice asks me for the last four numbers of my SSN before it reads out the account data. When sending an application for a new credit card, the SSN must be on it.
In terms of data protection, one gets the bare horror. Some health insurance companies take the SSN as a membership number and print it on the card so that every doctor's assistant can see it. Every time I write something for an American publisher and get paid for it, I have to submit my SSN so that it is correctly taxed. Recently, a secretary even wanted me to send her the SSN by email - which I had to give a lengthy lecture about how the text of any normal email is accessible to anyone who sits at a computer somewhere between the sender and the receiver. Even the registration form for the Costco shopping paradise asks for the SSN, it's downright crazy!
This total devaluation of the SSN has led to the need to think very carefully about who to actually give one's SSN to. Even if it is asked for, one sometimes has to really say "No!" In recent years, authorities have registered a drastic increase in "Identity Theft" crimes. If someone knows someone else's SSN and also knows their name and address, it is very easy to open accounts, apply for credit cards and do all kinds of mischief. The victims often don't notice this for years until one day the rude awakening comes when unexpectedly high bills arrive and the reputation is ruined. It often takes years for the victims to repair the damage.
Therefore, consumer organizations and the independent magazine "Consumer Reports" (similar to Stiftung Warentest in Germany) recommend that one should check their "Credit Report" at least once a year with the three credit bureaus. This costs $12.95 per bureau (so a total of $38.85) and can be quickly done over the internet with companies like MyFico. There, one not only has to provide their SSN and driver's license number, but also has to answer a series of tricky questions to ensure that they are indeed who they claim to be.
There, you can then see your Credit Score and all accounts, credit cards, and loans you have ever applied for per credit monitoring firm. Additionally, the website shows any irregularities and gives tips on how to increase your Credit Score.
For example, if one has never taken out a loan, one should simply apply for a small one for fun, pay it back properly, and the score will increase. However, if one asks for the credit report too often, this will reduce the score, so be careful!
Since the process works for three companies independently, it is important to check all three to make sure that no mistakes have been made that can be claimed to the respective companies. The companies usually do not delete the mistakes, but comments can be added.
Lately, even credit card companies are advertising that they protect against identity theft by electronically monitoring what people buy and sounding an alarm if the behavior pattern changes abruptly. Newspaper ads like the one in Figure 10 show grotesque situations: a truck driver sitting in his underwear and holding a can of soda in the hairdresser's salon under the dryer. The ad text begins with "It seemed strange to us" and explains that the trucker's credit card was suddenly charged $5000 for a beauty salon and the credit card company stepped in. On television, there are commercials in which a grandmother in a deck chair speaks with the shrill voice of a teenager, telling how she just spent a lot of money on clothes.
Michael Now there's one new reality show: "The Apprentice", in which the real estate tycoon Donald Trump finds a CEO for one of his companies via television.
First, the 14 young and dynamic candidates filtered from 215,000 applications were divided into two teams: 7 women and 7 men each formed a group. As a team, they had to tackle small business tasks such as renting an apartment, selling lemonade on the street, running a restaurant or casino for a day, or organizing a golf tournament. The losing team had to appear in the "Board Room" in front of Trump with the previously determined project manager and two other candidates, and then Trump "fired" someone for not performing.
Interestingly, the women won one challenge after another, following the motto "Sex Sells" -- at Planet Hollywood they visibly excited male customers to buy expensive liquor, and a gold bar dealer nervously looked into the camera as they performed daring exotic dances to lower the sale price. At a victory celebration, Trump then intervened and made it clear to the ladies' team that they didn't need to prostitute themselves like that.
It is noticeable that Trump is an amazing manager with excellent personnel management qualities. He leaves nothing to chance. The show is an efficient advertising campaign for his empire, which is rumored to be in financial difficulties. Unscrupulously, advertising is done for his casinos, real estate companies and even his business buddies; some advertising agencies get a free appearance at prime time.
However, it seems that there is a very authoritarian climate in the Trump empire. Everyone talks to Trump as "Mr. Trump" as if he were the emperor of America. Even his two "executive" briefcase carriers, who allegedly manage some of his businesses, are competing to flatter their boss. This so-called "brown-nosing" was news to me in America; my relationship with various bosses has been more comradely. But maybe I'm spoiled by an internet company, and I usually don't hang out in the upper floors. In any case, I wouldn't last two days with the sycophants in the Trump empire. And I've been with AOL for almost seven years!
However, Trump suffers from a bad case of what we call "cow taste" in Germany. Everything that is supposed to look luxurious is loaded with gold and plunder, bending and breaking, and each of his offices looks like Circus Circus in Las Vegas. And his hairstyle is already legendary bad. So bad that late-night show host David Letterman already held a quiz in which candidates had to guess which hairstyle belonged to a chimpanzee and which belonged to Donald Trump at half-covered photos. Pretty tough!
Furthermore, he allegedly wants to patent the expression "You're fired!" in America as part of the general patent hysteria. Read it quickly in the newsletter before the lawyers of the Trump empire intervene!
Michael Due to a recommendation from Mr. Huber, who was enthusiastic about a concert of the band "Kraftwerk" in Bavaria, and claimed that no one still snaps the tweeters as elegantly as they do, I bought a ticket for their concert in San Francisco and was enchanted!
The four not-so-young Germans, who remained musically faithful but switched consistently to laptops instead of giant computers, still play their electronic compositions like robots. Hardly anyone moves behind their standing desk. Otherwise the stage is empty. Gigantic video projections in the background. In the penultimate stage setting, suddenly it is not the Kraftwerker themselves on stage, but gracefully moving robots! Musically, most of it is pre-programmed, but when the Kraftwerkers are on stage, they vary enough details live so that each concert is a little different.
The audience was an interesting mix of German residents of San Francisco, top-league computer hackers (I recognized Brian Behlendorf) and black DJ types.
I'm touched to think that I still have her record "Trans Europa Express" from 1977 as a vinyl disc, which is sitting in a moving box in an attic near Augsburg!
Michael Ha, here's another crazy idea! However, the best ideas come to me in the most impossible situations and if I don't write them down immediately, I forget them as quickly as they came. That's why I've been accustomed for years to jot down any jolt of brain activity immediately. Of course, I don't always have pen and paper with me and when I'm cycling through the city or creativity strikes the train, it's hard to write it down. That's why I've been carrying a small digital dictaphone with me for some time now. Everywhere: on trips, in the car, on the bike, on the plane and even in the gym.
I can quickly record short messages on the Olympus VN-900 voice recorder, "the Digi", as I call it, then it digitally captures my words in amazing quality. It stores them until I have time to transform them into projects and enter them into my calendar. I can operate the Digi with one hand without looking and it even stores the date and time of the recording. And it's only slightly bigger than a disposable lighter, much smaller than even the smallest mobile phones and only costs about 35 dollars. It stores up to 100 messages, up to 30 minutes, but no one has that many ideas. And the batteries last forever. Good thing I recently recorded a note to promote the Digi as a top product in the newsletter! And if I look at the illustration photo I just took, I wonder if I should work as a hand model for the advertising industry. What do you say?
Angelika Munich residents go skiing in the mountains, Oldenburgers go shopping in the Dutch city of Groningen, and Californians go to relax in Hawaii. As you can see, we were back in Hawaii again. Since we had already visited every inhabited Hawaiian island, we thought we'd start over with "Big Island". Just to remind you: "Big Island" is officially called Hawaii. Since Hawaii is also the collective term for the island group and the state, everyone calls it "Big Island". The somewhat unimaginative name refers solely to the size of the island.
Why do we keep coming back to Hawaii? It's simple: the weather is great, the ocean is warm, the beaches are beautiful. You don't need a visa or annoying vaccinations, there's no malaria, everyone speaks English, the landscape is exotic without the addition of annoying, poisonous snakes or other dangerous animals. The snake argument is especially high on Michael's list. Snakes are not really his thing and I remember our trips to Australia, where he always sent me ahead on hiking trails to check out the snake situation, because Australia is known to have the most poisonous snakes in the world. But I digress.
Funnily enough, different small creatures loved us on this vacation. It started when I stepped on a sea urchin in the ocean. I initially thought a sharp, long dagger had rammed into my foot to split it (seriously - that's how it felt). Bravely, I pulled out the spines, but I couldn't see anything in the choppy ocean. So, I limped out of the water and examined my foot on the beach. I discovered a slightly bleeding cut. A cool surfer who was strolling past our beach spot inspected my wound and brought up the sea urchin theory. He kindly explained the treatments practiced on the island: first, pee on the wound or soak the foot in vinegar water to relieve the burning pain, then use tweezers to pluck out the spines. Nurse Michael, also known as "Rabiato", took on the task of removing the spines. The next day, everything was forgotten, except that the people splashing around with me in the ocean probably wondered why the woman in the red bikini was walking on eggshells on the soft sand. One step on a sea urchin is enough.
A few days later, a huge spider visited us, seeing the driver's door of our rental car as a cozy spot. Michael immediately named it "Murder Spider". And when I read to him from the travel guide that there is indeed a dangerous species of spider on Hawaii, the "Black Widow", Michael was beside himself. Otherwise, we only shared our accommodation with the obligatory, insect-eating, completely harmless geckos, which are luminous green on Big Island.
Michael It is completely normal for geckos to roam around the house. The cute lizard-like reptiles occasionally make a quiet frog-like sound like "E-cko!", climb up walls with suction cup feet, lounge around near lamps, and elegantly snatch pesky mosquitoes and other pests. I always make sure there are enough geckos in the house. Nothing is more calming than hearing a mosquito buzz at night and thinking: The gecko will get you soon, bahahahaha!
Angelika Big Island, with its varied landscapes, almost feels like a mini-continent. Where else can you find active volcanoes, white, black and green beaches, meadows and fields, lush tropical vegetation on one side and hardened black lava on the other? On Big Island, I finally understood what volcanoes are all about and how new earth is created. Yes, I admit it, geography was not one of my favorite subjects in school. That may also be because my class teacher, Mr. Senst, tortured us with terms like end moraines and the effects of the ice age in seventh grade, but I was more concerned with my effect on the opposite sex.
I don't remember that Mr. Senst ever mentioned volcanoes. Probably people learn that in elementary school. When we drove past a papaya field on Hawaii, I expressed my amazement as to why everything grows so well on lava soil. Michael then gave me a lecture that this is the most fertile soil of all and that you learn this in school. He even dug the name of this special soil out of his memory. Hmm, I always thought he spent his school time playing football on the street and not buried in school books. In addition to these geological considerations, philosophical thoughts always come to mind on Big Island when, for example, the delicate green plant bravely makes its way through the hard black masses of rock.
This time we didn't go to the flowing lava (see Rundbrief 11/2000), since it wasn't currently making its way to the ocean. Instead, we went to the "LavaTree State Monument". There, bizarre-looking lava tree trunks reach up to the sky. They were formed in 1790, when lava flowed through this rainforest. Parts of the lava solidified on the wet tree trunks and even though the trees themselves burned, the shaped lava shells remained standing. I wouldn't have been surprised if a dinosaur had come around the corner in this park.
On Big Island (and Hawaii in general) I'm always fascinated anew by how American it is -- and yet not: There's the obligatory American fast food, the same chain stores, and the same TV programming. The street signs, of course, don't look any different from the mainland at first glance, but a second look reveals them: Kealakekua, Laupahoehoe, Anaeho'omalu.
Tourists find resorts and golf courses, but also remnants of ancient Hawaiian culture if you venture off the beaten path. For example, we hiked to the Mo'okini Heiau sacrificial site, which is considered one of the oldest Hawaiian temple complexes. The open-air temple, bounded by stone piles, is located on the windy northern tip of the island and we had to go around some huge puddles to get to it. The tradition says that people were also sacrificed to the gods here. I believed it immediately: because the temple is so far from the shot, nobody sees or hears anything.
Returning to today's Hawaiian lifestyle: The locals don't get easily flustered and don't constantly hustle and bustle. For example, we experienced how a typical New York family father with wife and two children at the beach rental spread wild chaos because he still needed this and that folding chair as well as a beach umbrella. The rental guy didn't care at all. Stolidly and in slow motion he handed him everything. The chaos simply bounced off him. Even that at 11 o'clock in the morning usually all beach umbrellas were already rented out, didn't set the American entrepreneurial spirit in motion in Hawaii to buy more beach umbrellas in order to be able to rent out more. "Hang loose" is the motto of the islanders.
In our last newsletter, we reported in detail about the issuance of marriage certificates to same-sex couples in San Francisco (Rundbrief 03/2004). Over 4,000 couples were able to marry before the California Supreme Court temporarily stopped this act of civil disobedience on March 11th. As previously announced, supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage are preparing for a lengthy legal battle in California. On the other hand, in the state of Massachusetts, the dream of same-sex marriage has been a reality since May 17th. Homosexual couples receive the marriage certificate with all the rights and obligations granted to heterosexual couples in Massachusetts. However, congress has stipulated that in 2006 the voters will decide whether same-sex marriage will remain in Massachusetts. But until then, the wedding bells will definitely continue to be ringing.
For weeks, the newspapers have been full of discussions and debates about the torture that American soldiers committed in Iraq. Smart minds are discussing how it happened and what should be done about it. Politicians, psychologists, philosophers, and the general public are all voicing their opinions. There is also a wide range of reactions: deepest indignation, soothing, and blame. I was not surprised by the behavior of the American soldiers, because in other wars, such as the former Yugoslavia, there have always been completely inhumane behaviors from all sides. The fact remains that a democratic state has already lost when it sees war as a legitimate political means.
Greetings from San Francisco, the city with an absolute majority against Bush.
Angelika and Michael
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