Author Archives: Doug Merrill

About Doug Merrill

Freelance journalist based in Tbilisi, following stints in Atlanta, Budapest, Munich, Warsaw and Washington. Worked for a German think tank, discovered it was incompatible with repaying US student loans. Spent two years in financial markets. Bicycled from Vilnius to Tallinn. Climbed highest mountains in two Alpine countries (the easy ones, though). American center-left, with strong yellow dog tendencies. Arrived in the Caucasus two weeks before its latest war.

It Was Easy to Miss…

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but one of the most important decisions about the future of European security was announced Monday in Germany. Defense Minister Peter Struck has been on the airwaves and in the papers a great deal since the beginning of the year, talking about military reform. He’s been having a bit of a rough time of it. The Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung tartly noted that at the same time Struck was calling on the Bundeswehr to suit up for more demanding missions, he was announcing plans to cut the German armed forces? procurement over the next decade by considerably more than 20 billion euros. That’s more than a fistful, even by military standards. Predictably, there?s been a fuss, most loudly from armaments companies, saying that the planned cuts deny them the “planning security” that they had come to expect from the government. Second loudest has been the opposition, which has been doing its job by opposing the government’s plans.

But Struck’s pronouncements weren’t the important ones. The most important news about German defense, and thus European security, came from the Renate Schmidt, Minister for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. No, really.
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That Monocultural Thing

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So there we were in the corner Italian restaurant — not staffed by Italians mind you, though maybe the cook is, but by Hungarians and Croatians — wondering why Swedish mystery writers (crime novelists, to some) are so big in Germany, and so much better than most German practitioners of the genre.

Not that we figured it out, any more than we solved the riddle of Lawrence Norfolk’s popularity here.

Exaggerating for Effect?

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Maybe

“A few days before 25 European Presidents and Prime Ministers met in Brussels to try to ratify a constitution, former French President Val?ry Giscard d’Estaing had dire words of warning. Failure to approve the 265-page text, of which he had been the principal author, would be a disaster for the cause of a united Europe: ‘We would see the gradual falling apart of the European Union.'”
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A Brief American Interlude

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The front page of today’s Washington Post has a none-too-flattering analysis of Gov. Howard Dean, the man most likely to challenge GW Bush for the White House in 2004. It starts:

“Former Vermont governor Howard Dean stands on the brink of a remarkable achievement in American politics, having transformed himself from rank obscurity to clear favorite for his party’s presidential nomination. But rarely has a front-runner begun an election year with as many questions swirling around him as the man who rewrote the rules in presidential politics the past 12 months.”

Coming from someone whose profession is supposed to be reporting on American politics, the second sentence is rankest stupidity.
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Silly German Regulations, Part 438

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Did you know that in Bavaria, it is illegal to run a service station’s car wash on Sunday?

Apparently, this falls under the category of disturbing the peace. Equally apparently, the coin-operated industrial-strength vacuum cleaners do not disturb the peace.

I learned this where the six-lane A9 autobahn deposits its traffic onto the eight-lane Mittlerer Ring, about a hundred meters from the crossing with the six-lane Leopoldstrasse. A very peaceful spot indeed.

These Don’t Have Much to do with Europe

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…but I think you’d enjoy reading them anyway. While we get all exercised about one small corner of Eurasia, they’re eyeballing exciting things from around the whole world.

The inimitable Bruce Sterling:

Beyond the Beyond

The slightly wacked Cory Doctorow and the definitely out there Mark Frauenfelder:

A Directory of Wonderful Things

Getting more or less serious about building a better future:

Another World Is Here

My Bet

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Is that there won’t be a compromise under the Italian Presidency. I remeber hearing a few weeks back that the Irish government has been making plans to finish up the IGC’s business during its six months at the helm.

How much of the current worry is due to Berlusconi’s initial fumbles? Six months disappear awfully quickly, if you spend the first two healing self-inflicted wounds.
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