Walking in the other guy's moccasins

One thing I really like about my local PBS television station is that I'm able to get not only BBC World News, but Deutsche-Welle News (in English), and just recently they've started running an English-language news program from Japan (with incredibly detailed descriptions of the various problems at the stricken power plant). I like hearing about what's happening in the world from a perspective other than American. For that matter, I like hearing about what's happening in the rest of the world! Except for disasters like major earthquakes and tsunamis, we hear very little about the rest of the world on our network news.

For example, I've been learning a lot about the German economy during the recent economic crisis. They're doing much better than we are, in terms of recovery, mainly because their economy still depends so much on exports, and the things they export -- especially cars -- have continued to sell. On the other hand, I have become familiar with how desparate the economic situation is in Spain, in Portugal, and in Ireland.

And I've been learning about German politics. Of course I knew before that Angela Merkel was Chancellor (well, actually no. I knew she headed the government, but I think I thought she was, maybe, the Prime Minister. Which she essentially is, but in Germany the position is called the Chancellor); but I doubt I would ever have known that her very popular Defense Minister, Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, was forced to resign when it came out that he had plagiarized much of his doctoral thesis. I was somewhat surprised, but pleased, to see that so many people thought that was important enough to merit his leaving office. ("It calls into doubt his integrity," one person said). I couldn't help wondering if the same thing would happen in this country. Would people think it was that important?

The one thing I continue to have trouble with, though, is the German language. When German speakers start talking their voices are quickly muted to make way for the English translator's voice, but you still hear a few snippets. And I'm sorry, but that is just the most incredibly ugly language. Here are all these reasonable, well-meaning people espousing perfectly reasonable ideas and opinions, and they all sound like angry Nazis.

It was interesting, seeing how all the various political leaders took a real bashing from their own people as the result of the economic crisis; 'twern't just Mr. Obama. In England they actually got rid of the head guy (Gordon Brown), people have been very unhappy with Sarcozy in France, especially after his government raised the retirement age, to save money; and in Germany, Merkel's popularity has steadily slipped. People have to have someone to blame, and it's easier to zero in on the country's very visible political leaders, than on the invisible people who really caused the problems.

So anyway, I'm having my horizons expanded. Thank you, public television.