C, I had a great time in NYC as well. You really looked like you had lost weight. We should definitely make plans for a philly visit soon! September looks a bit busy for me, but maybe labor day weekend? I have Monday (9/5) off and we could go hiking and restauranting (indian buffet, mexican) in the city of brotherly love. Just an idea. maybe even check out the medical oddities museum. I am thinking I could see both C and Dad on labor day weekend, if possible.
Dad, what are you doing for labor day? I would like to come visit Hanover as well, possibly with Gavin and Ebony, and we could do yard work, swim at the pool in Codorus and maybe even go canoeing.
JP, am really excited about your visit. I will try to coordinate some days off while you are around. hope giving your boss the axe went smoothly.
I have been really busy with work traveling a lot and mastering "the ropes." things should be dying down for a little, and then we will be moving to a new building after Labor day. have lots of document shredding to do. Otherwise in September I will be traveling a bit: Indianapolis on the 15th, and a Florida trip the 30th through Oct. 2. there might be more in between.
maybe even bed bath and beyond, who knows, anything could happen (badly worded "old school" reference, JP, you should know this one).
all from me.
love,
H
- posted by H @ 8/26/2005 10:48:00 AM

 
Didn't scroll down and see Dad's and JP's entries since last Thursday.
JP - the LieSmith link has been updated...
Big choices for you right now, although a few years down the road, they won't seem so big in hindsight, so it's good you're not stressing out too much. Being able to come back and work with your boss again is a great option to have... Three years is long enough to leave a job or town with your head high, secure in the knowledge that you gave it a shot, explored all possibilities, and are now moving on...
Dad - Things have been going well for the last 3 1/2 weeks since I started taking Prevacid for the erosive esophagitis. Not one case of acid reflux that I've noticed. My doctor called me a week ago to make sure I was following his course of treatment. I assume he was thinking of me because he got my biopsy results back from the lab. Since he didn't mention them, or give me any new information, the biopsy must have shown nothing bad. A normal case of erosive esophagitis takes about 2 months to heal, according to the prevacid.com website. I figure, with my pretty bad case of it, it'll take me 3 to 4 months, but then I should be 100%. My case is completely reversible, so that's a relief.
H also thinks I've lost some weight recently - the doctor's number two recommendation was "Weight loss critical." My medium-term goal right now would be to get my weight down to 250... Not something that'll happen in a week, though...

Hope you are all doing well! H - see my short post below this one...
C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 8/24/2005 02:52:00 PM

 
Sommerloch, again!
H - Thanks for coming to NYC for my birthday! The food at Hallo Berlin was great and I had a really good time walking through Central Park and Times Square. We gotta visit Philly more often - you gotta visit NYC more often!
JP - What happened to your blog? The link is dead right now...

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 8/24/2005 02:43:00 PM

 
hi from rainy highway 87 N heading to the gathering of the vibes. 3 day music festival, very hippy with grateful dead tributes, a few cool bands I want to see, but mostly just to hang out and enjoy the fact that it's free. for me, gavin and two friends of ours, Eric and Jen. the festival is near Albany, NY, and JP, you worked at vibes one year, remember? Gavin brought his laptop with satellite internet so I will try to post musings and observations for the festival over the next few days. will probably post to my blog as well, as I have been neglecting it.
regarding the master's I mentioned, I decided that I had enough on my plate already with studying for the GREs, so will maybe start it in the spring. plus the professor I want to work with is teaching a few classes in the spring (not this fall) I would like to attend, so I could fit that into the master's if I wanted to. either way I will probably audit them...
JP, I am glad that you are getting back into the school thing! now all we have to do is rope C in. what do you think, C? how about getting a Master's or PhD? you could be JD, PhD. nice.
all from me for now. will try to post more tomorrow.
love,
H
- posted by H @ 8/12/2005 07:28:00 PM

 
Interesting post on Davids Medienkritik pointing to a Harris poll entitled Americans Remain More Optimistic and Satisfied with Life than Europeans.

Here's the key paragraph from the overview (I've added the numbers for Germany in brackets, emphasis in original):

"Fully 58 percent of Americans are very satisfied with their lives compared to the 15-country European average of 31 percent [Only 21% of Germans feel this way]. Fifty-six percent of Americans think that their lives have improved in the last five years compared to 45 percent of Europeans [Only 26% of Germans feel this way]. Furthermore, 65 percent of Americans expect their personal situation will improve in the next five years compared to only 44 percent of Europeans [Only 23% of Germans feel this way]. However, Europe is not at all homogenous and the mood varies widely from country to country."

I don't draw attention to these numbers because I want to put Germany down. I just get upset by the coverage in Germany of America as a place "increasingly plagued by self-doubts" which is on a downward spiral, with no more options, while the outlook in Western Europe, especially Germany, is far, far more dismal than it is in the U.S.

But it is the nature of politicians of all parties, everywhere, to distract people from their current problems by showcasing the problems of people in other countries... That'll never change...

I'm looking forward to visiting Germany in 2006, because I haven't been there since 1999, and because I want to see how far things have come since we lived there during Germany's peak, its best years in the early 1990s...

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 8/12/2005 03:14:00 PM

 
C, read the article. I thought it was interesting, especially since I had heard that the evacuation and general handling of the situation was being touted as a text book case of "what to do if your plane is on fire." survival instinct really does prevail. I wonder though if people might have a heightened awareness of security due to the occurances of the past 5 years or so, and might be more prepared (though they might not know it) to deal with these sorts of life-threatening situations. you could consider this theory the positive side of heightened awareness, vs. the ridiculous side, which is the biothreat- duct tape and color-coded security level scares that we have in our news media. it would be interesting to interview the survivors of this crash to see what they experienced and how they feel they handled it in retrospect, and how the current state of an individual's perception of their security (in a national kind of way) may/may not have affected their actions.
we could start researching this topic. I have some leads from the conference that I went to in Boston this April, plus the vast expanse of info that is the Penn Library system.
I am exploring the possibility of doing a Master's in Liberal Arts at Penn, which would be free as I am an employee. I am just trying to figure out if it's worth it and I have the time, considering the obligations that I will have with teaching kung fu, traveling with work, and actually having some time to relax. I could probably finish it in two years.
let me stress the free-ness of it again. also, if I do get accepted at Penn for grad school, I could just finish it off during my first semester and then be MLA, PhD. nice.
am not sure, but I have basically until the end of the week to decide.
advice?
love to all,
H
- posted by H @ 8/08/2005 02:29:00 PM

 
Dad - too bad about the mower, but it's good to hear that things may work out well at Roth's. Stay out of the humidity! Watch your health!

H - remember that conversation we had in the car about people responding spontaneously in the face of crisis or emergency? There's an article in the New York Times which talks about the subject in relation to the Air France plane crash last Tuesday. Here's a snippet:

The Air France evacuation required an extraordinary degree of social coordination - which emerged among a group of strangers with virtually no time to prepare. Once out of the wreckage, they were aided by other strangers who, on the spur of the moment and with no expertise in emergency situations, had pulled off a nearby highway and calmly charged into the scene, despite the risks posed by an exploding plane.

While this sort of behavior is often described as remarkable, it is actually what researchers have come to expect. Studies of civilians' intense experiences in the London Blitz; the cities of Japan and Germany in World War II; the 1947 smallpox outbreak in New York; the earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 1995; and even fires have found that people, however stressed, almost always keep their wits and elevate their humanity.

We need to come up with a research topic and start working on it, on the side...

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 8/08/2005 12:43:00 PM

 
here's a little something I came across one day...just ordered the full dissertation on interlibrary loan (free of course)...
here:
http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/8229011
the link might not work because your computers don't have the database access that Penn does. I tried to copy and paste the abstract but blogger didn't give me to the option to "paste."

C, let me know what your beach plans are. we could meet up.
H
- posted by H @ 8/05/2005 09:12:00 AM

 
Congratulations, JP, on getting the news from Santa Monica! The Miller family is a quick bicycle ride from the Santa Monica Pier, so you'd be in the neighborhood (they live pretty close to UCLA). I'll call Justin this weekend...

Dad - question for you. I know that your doctoral dissertation involved the Turkish population in Germany, but could you give us a quick summary of it? With the recent focus on the assimilation (or lack thereof) of Muslim groups in Europe, it might be worth your while to put your work in a format for publishing. Even if it were dated a bit, it could have value as a historical reference...

H - I'll give you a call this weekend - we are thinking of going to the beach, but I'm not sure if we'll stay somewhere close to home (Rockaways or even Coney Island), or make the trip to AC!

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 8/04/2005 06:29:00 PM

 
Hey all. Good news, JP. L.A. is a big city, and you do have some contacts there - Toby, of course, but don't forget that you stayed at the Millers' house with me in 2000 when we went to Vegas and L.A. Justin has moved to Atlanta, but I could call him and find out if his relatives could find something for you...

Regarding dual citizenship, there's a website here which has researched the question. The site has a link to a State Department document from 1990 which describes State's current policy.

Here are some excerpts (I've emphasized the bold parts in the 1st excerpt):

POTENTIALLY EXPATRIATING STATUTES

Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, states that U.S. citizens are subject to loss of citizenship if they perform certain acts voluntarily and with the intention to relinquish U.S. citizenship. Briefly stated, these acts include:

(1) obtaining naturalization in a foreign state (Sec. 349 (a) (1) INA);

(2) taking an oath, affirmation or other formal declaration to a foreign state or its political subdivisions (Sec. 349 (a) (2) INA);

In this next part, the bold is in the original:

ADMINISTRATIVE STANDARD OF EVIDENCE

As already noted, the actions listed above can cause loss of U.S. citizenship only if performed voluntarily and with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship. The Department has a uniform administrative standard of evidence based on the premise that U.S. citizens intend to retain United States citizenship when they obtain naturalization in a foreign state, subscribe to routine declarations of allegiance to a foreign state, or accept non-policy level employment with a foreign government.

DISPOSITION OF CASES WHEN ADMINISTRATIVE PREMISE IS APPLICABLE

In light of the administrative premise discussed above, a person who:

(1) is naturalized in a foreign country;

(2) takes a routine oath of allegiance or

(3) accepts non-policy level employment with a foreign government

and in so doing wishes to retain U.S. citizenship need not submit prior to the commission of a potentially expatriating act a statement or evidence of his or her intent to retain U.S. citizenship since such an intent will be presumed.

If you are applying for a passport, and the consular officer becomes aware that you performed one of the acts above,

the consular officer will simply ask the applicant if there was intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship when performing the act. If the answer is no, the consular officer will certify that it was not the person's intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship and, consequently, find that the person has retained U.S. citizenship.
(bold in original)

To lose U.S. citizenship, one must either:
- renounce U.S. citizenship before a consular officer;
- take a policy-level position in a foreign state;
- be convicted of treason; or
- commit an act which compels a conclusion that the individual intended to relinquish U.S. citizenship. (Such cases are very rare.)

Finally, there's a section on dual nationality, which says in part:
Dual nationality can also occur when a person is naturalized in a foreign state without intending to relinquish U.S. nationality and is thereafter found not to have lost U.S. citizenship the individual consequently may possess dual nationality. While recognizing the existence of dual nationality and permitting Americans to have other nationalities, the U.S. Government does not endorse dual nationality as a matter of policy because of the problems which it may cause.

In other words, I think we can have dual citizenship...
C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 8/02/2005 02:08:00 PM