Heady stuff

Quite a week so far. I had a repeat appearance on Louie Free's radio show, this time with Tim Sokol to talk about the Campbell Workers' Housing project on Saturday. And two nights in a row I was interviewed by German television network ARD. Tuesday night was with a group of friends involved in the campaign to save West Federal Street from bad designs. Everyone, I think, got equal time to talk about the shrinking city and the contributions of the young activists and bloggers in it. Why here? Why now? Why us? Und so weiter...

Afterwards, I talked with Klaus Scherer about politics. Apparently, this morning he got a request to do a story to coincide with the upcoming 9/11 anniversary and to get Americans' reactions to it. He asked Chris Rutushin and me about our views on 9/11, the Bush administration, the American image abroad, und so weiter. I enjoyed talking with him, and he was very engaging. The producer, Tara Libert, will be sending us a DVD of the programs once complete. That's seriously cool.

I lived and went to school in Germany during the '92/93 school year. I stayed in Demmin, bei Familie Pagel. They were a wonderful host family, and I studied piano at the Goethe-Gymnasium with Herr Stefan Richter, whose kindly eyes and thin, full beard I'll never forget. There's no question that my year in Germany changed my life. Looking at my own country and language through other eyes gave me a valuable perspective that I lacked. When I went, I thought I knew all the answers. When I returned, I knew there was much more than I knew.

In many ways, I think the people I lived with and met in the former East Germany are like midwesterners: friendly, ready to help, and generous to a fault.