Sunday, November 09, 2014
Flying to South Dakota, April 2000
Flying to Dad’s Funeral
The unpleasant premonition
that we’ve walked this earth with less gusto
and a hollow ring to our sloughing steps.
Myself knelt down to survey
the treeless moldings
of snow-blasted, snow-softened
Greenland – or was it Prince Rupert Island?
My first Leif Erikson view
out above the clouds
which offer their blanket
to stark masses of untamed land.
A certain pang struck me
as rills of sub-zero groundswells
arched in fish-fin precision
over and against unsmuch’t whiteness
of inviting purity.
My gaze sought out a sign of spring -
a lifeline to thaw the taut expanse
to relax frozen kinks
of steel-gray shoulders.
I cast out for a lone ambling deer,
a sliver of melt streaking the face
of cold December
with April’s fledgling warmth.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
My English Soccer Prediction Group - very occasional remarks
For two seasons now, since 2013 or round about then I've been in a group that guesses the outcomes of matches in the three highest divisions of English football. Interesting. We do it by uploading spreadsheets containing our guesses. Many of the 8 to 10 involved have known each other since university days, so if you comment online, you might ignite some venom from an old grudge in the 1980s. Tread carefully. Their favorite teams from lower divisions are included, which helps keep interest high.
I am North American, so I simply get to tag along, which suits me, too, since I'm learning so much.
What I haven't done is come out of the secret footballer closet and say why my predictions are so abominable sometimes. Okay, I do check the odds and my gut instincts are pretty good by now, but sometimes I commit a clattering error. I'm informed of this the next time I'm down round the pub and two of the Predictathon players from Brighton and Birmingham who live with me on a Spanish island tell me as much, shaking their heads.
Take this weekend, for example. As a non-European, I have had to bone up on what affects the final outcome of a game you predict. That's me: someone who at age 40, 11 years ago, had virtually no knowledge about the sport. Yes, I have very vague memories of standing in a European living room of some Irish/English guy named Ken Cronin in 1990 or 1992 or 1994 or 1996 or 1998 or so thinking: wow that young English guy IS good. Beckham or something. Or seeing about 3 of the key matches when France "went through" in 1998. Wow, Zinedine Zidane, amazing. Whatever. I was a long-distance runner and enjoyed basketball and baseball. But I essentialy knew nothing about tactics and close to nothing about what the rules really were. Away win, diving, relegation playoffs.
By 2004 and 2006 all that had changed.
In 2004 the Greek restaurant owner and his staff and family downstairs from our flat in Hamburg went running out of their tavern, screaming, dancing, ecstatic, becuase their motley crew had won the European Championships under a German manager. All done as complete underdogs. Okay, of course I remember how Denmark did that long, long ago in the mid-1990s, too. But I was so disinterested, I did little more than glance for seconds at some newspaper headline on the subway and thought, okay, fine. Good for them.
In 2006 Germany hosted the whole World Cup and finished 3rd and I was caught up in this amazing display of national allegiance to the team, love of sport, international understanding, Australians streaming to their game being held in Hamburg, all laughing, in a great mood, supporting their continent. And I really began to catch onto what was going on with the game. I knew what kind of timing, pace and intelligence it takes for David Odonkor to be "released" for a forward sprint and send in the deft cross or even score himself vs. Poland, what midfielders were best at vying for physical (rebound) position and control the flow of the game around the midfield stripe. The triangle-shaped one-touch passing of the Spaniards to befuddle opponents and twist legs into knots. Playing long balls over good defenders to neutralize their physical prowess, a concept now popular in Germany as "Anzahl überspielter Gegner" (number of defenders overtaken by a pass). I was becoming a football nerd in Europe.
Now to my most recent predictions and one or two interspersed sentences to explain the thought process behind them.
Liverpool: I am parochial, I know people who went there and did well, like Didi Hamann, great player, great sense of humor. But I also remember former Dortmunder Nuri Sahin being placed out of position by Brendan Rodgers, and it made no sense to me. I know Rodgers is good, but I don't particularly like his brand of coaching. It is fine, sure, but there are folks like Simeone at Atletico who just grate on my nerves. So I just come out and predict against their manager, not their players, not always, whenever I can, but not against the odds. Young Moreno, and a Henderson. Gerrard, Super Mario Balotteli, Raheem Sterling. That includes quality, and though people fear they are impotent up front, I think they will win, if only by one goal.
I will go down to the pub for the 4 p.m. game and hope Aston Villa appears on one of the screens. Chelsea were tame last time, and I always dislike players like Oscar if they haven't got energy, vigor and only play in a flashy manner, so that is why, though Villa are strong away, I can't see them hurting Chelsea without Christian Benteke recovered from injury, not to mention badly injured Kozak coming back to deftly dribble and also score.
Another guess I made was based on my not liking the form, shape or style of Tottenham Hotspur. Especially if hustling players (think Ivica Olic) like Lewis Holtby don't get enough playing time. The Kyle Walker bravado kinda guy, that is the Tottenham fit. Too bad he's out, but he is a kind of over-muscled chugga player who will run out of steam too soon in a fast-paced match. A pure team player with style like Holtby, that is not the brand of player which does well in the Premiere League. Thank goodness Lewis Holtby is back in Germany, to strengthen hapless Hamburg.
Same for Kagawa. There is something strange about a "team" which cannot integrate such a great player like him, which Manchester United failed to do. There you go, can't change it. And now to the guesses.
Who will ever know what little fact made me say "2:1" - after looking at recent form on soccerbase.com, I often think that had I followed my gut instinct, it would have turned out better.
One correct guess = 3 points, getting the result = 1, and wrong guesses = 0.
It's a past-time and nothing more, but makes for good talk and cheer among us, even with me as a relative newcomer welcomed by Rob to join Penny, Graeme, Simon, Bob, sometimes Graham.
What an accomplishment. Based on exact score outcomes, I was named runner-up and wear the silver medal with pride.
I am North American, so I simply get to tag along, which suits me, too, since I'm learning so much.
What I haven't done is come out of the secret footballer closet and say why my predictions are so abominable sometimes. Okay, I do check the odds and my gut instincts are pretty good by now, but sometimes I commit a clattering error. I'm informed of this the next time I'm down round the pub and two of the Predictathon players from Brighton and Birmingham who live with me on a Spanish island tell me as much, shaking their heads.
Take this weekend, for example. As a non-European, I have had to bone up on what affects the final outcome of a game you predict. That's me: someone who at age 40, 11 years ago, had virtually no knowledge about the sport. Yes, I have very vague memories of standing in a European living room of some Irish/English guy named Ken Cronin in 1990 or 1992 or 1994 or 1996 or 1998 or so thinking: wow that young English guy IS good. Beckham or something. Or seeing about 3 of the key matches when France "went through" in 1998. Wow, Zinedine Zidane, amazing. Whatever. I was a long-distance runner and enjoyed basketball and baseball. But I essentialy knew nothing about tactics and close to nothing about what the rules really were. Away win, diving, relegation playoffs.
By 2004 and 2006 all that had changed.
In 2004 the Greek restaurant owner and his staff and family downstairs from our flat in Hamburg went running out of their tavern, screaming, dancing, ecstatic, becuase their motley crew had won the European Championships under a German manager. All done as complete underdogs. Okay, of course I remember how Denmark did that long, long ago in the mid-1990s, too. But I was so disinterested, I did little more than glance for seconds at some newspaper headline on the subway and thought, okay, fine. Good for them.
In 2006 Germany hosted the whole World Cup and finished 3rd and I was caught up in this amazing display of national allegiance to the team, love of sport, international understanding, Australians streaming to their game being held in Hamburg, all laughing, in a great mood, supporting their continent. And I really began to catch onto what was going on with the game. I knew what kind of timing, pace and intelligence it takes for David Odonkor to be "released" for a forward sprint and send in the deft cross or even score himself vs. Poland, what midfielders were best at vying for physical (rebound) position and control the flow of the game around the midfield stripe. The triangle-shaped one-touch passing of the Spaniards to befuddle opponents and twist legs into knots. Playing long balls over good defenders to neutralize their physical prowess, a concept now popular in Germany as "Anzahl überspielter Gegner" (number of defenders overtaken by a pass). I was becoming a football nerd in Europe.
Now to my most recent predictions and one or two interspersed sentences to explain the thought process behind them.
Liverpool: I am parochial, I know people who went there and did well, like Didi Hamann, great player, great sense of humor. But I also remember former Dortmunder Nuri Sahin being placed out of position by Brendan Rodgers, and it made no sense to me. I know Rodgers is good, but I don't particularly like his brand of coaching. It is fine, sure, but there are folks like Simeone at Atletico who just grate on my nerves. So I just come out and predict against their manager, not their players, not always, whenever I can, but not against the odds. Young Moreno, and a Henderson. Gerrard, Super Mario Balotteli, Raheem Sterling. That includes quality, and though people fear they are impotent up front, I think they will win, if only by one goal.
I will go down to the pub for the 4 p.m. game and hope Aston Villa appears on one of the screens. Chelsea were tame last time, and I always dislike players like Oscar if they haven't got energy, vigor and only play in a flashy manner, so that is why, though Villa are strong away, I can't see them hurting Chelsea without Christian Benteke recovered from injury, not to mention badly injured Kozak coming back to deftly dribble and also score.
Another guess I made was based on my not liking the form, shape or style of Tottenham Hotspur. Especially if hustling players (think Ivica Olic) like Lewis Holtby don't get enough playing time. The Kyle Walker bravado kinda guy, that is the Tottenham fit. Too bad he's out, but he is a kind of over-muscled chugga player who will run out of steam too soon in a fast-paced match. A pure team player with style like Holtby, that is not the brand of player which does well in the Premiere League. Thank goodness Lewis Holtby is back in Germany, to strengthen hapless Hamburg.
Same for Kagawa. There is something strange about a "team" which cannot integrate such a great player like him, which Manchester United failed to do. There you go, can't change it. And now to the guesses.
Who will ever know what little fact made me say "2:1" - after looking at recent form on soccerbase.com, I often think that had I followed my gut instinct, it would have turned out better.
One correct guess = 3 points, getting the result = 1, and wrong guesses = 0.
| Sat 27th September, 2014 | Liverpool | 2 | 1 | Everton | ||||
| Chelsea | 2 | 1 | Aston Villa | |||||
| Crystal Palace | 1 | 2 | Leicester | |||||
| Hull | 1 | 2 | Man City | |||||
| Man Utd | 2 | 1 | West Ham | |||||
| Southampton | 1 | 0 | QPR | |||||
| Sunderland | 1 | 1 | Swansea | |||||
| Arsenal | 3 | 1 | Tottenham | |||||
| Bolton | 2 | 1 | Derby | |||||
| Bristol City | 2 | 2 | MK Dons | |||||
| Coventry | 1 | 2 | Preston | |||||
| Exeter | 0 | 1 | Bury | |||||
| Sun 28th September | West Brom | 1 | 0 | Burnley | ||||
| Mon 29th September | Stoke | 2 | 1 | Newcastle |
It's a past-time and nothing more, but makes for good talk and cheer among us, even with me as a relative newcomer welcomed by Rob to join Penny, Graeme, Simon, Bob, sometimes Graham.
Update from 2019
We continued on into the Predictathon's 16th year. It is my 7th season. My great moment (so far, mind you) was tying with the season winner Simon on the last day of the 2015-16 season.What an accomplishment. Based on exact score outcomes, I was named runner-up and wear the silver medal with pride.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Prodigal Son Shinji Kagawa Returns to Dortmund with a Bang
I have an inkling: Having a Daily Fit, very very costly Angel di Maria and Marcus Rojos and their teammates might all bow out of Europa League contention, of course yielding to upstarts like Aston Villa, while the new coach is nearing an irreversible flood stage of "River of Talent" Blindness in the wake (get it?) of seeing Shinji Kagawa's return debut in Germany yesterday.
Okay, enough stream-of-consciusness. The plain facts.
After a two-year walk through the wilderness with the very occasional oasis, the services of long-suffering Shinji Kagawa were finally re-acquired by BVB and the Japanese national made his home stadium debut yesterday at Borussia Park to neatly slot in a goal for the traditional coal-mining region club. He also added a butter-soft, beautifully timed and deftly executed assist in the Dortmund club's 3-1 win over Freiburg. Kagawa had demonstrated that kind of presence and brilliant passing on the ManU summer US tour http://tinyurl.com/qywfarb and in the Premiere League but only when given an unqualified, no strings attached chance to. Short-term memory: his pass late in the Real Madrid game on August 2 to Chicharito was fabulous, and Hernandez knew it, giving Shinji all the credit. For one thing: ManU only needed to play and integrate Kagawa for more than 2 matches in a row (shortsightedness) and they would have never finished in that now deserved "only" 7th place spot - leaving them fuming that they have only "two shots at silver" after only a few weeks of their 2014-2015 campaign.
ManU fans are constantly harping on their prayer wheel that Rooney gives it everything he has for the team. Hmm. That is too undifferentiated. He also gives it less when it would help the team, but - ahem - strengthen a player vying for a deserved No. 10 spot, even if his team suffers for it. Just analyze the video when Valencia was on the pitch with Kagawa: how often did the two hook up and give the ball back and forth?
How many times not?
Neutral voice: "Kagawa could be open all day right in front of Rooney and more times than not Rooney will attempt a much more difficult pass." http://tinyurl.com/o4xmo88
With a little team support and endurance on the part of the trainer team, he would be a headline player sometimes, and a deserved regular almost all the time.
Change to the Continent: Now all signs so far indicate he will be a valuable marquee player, a substitute sometimes, too, no doubt, but will have the space to fulfill his promise and expectations in the right context - in the good hands of Jürgen Klopp, master trainer. If this doesn't happen, it would surprise me.
Of course you can say the mix was wrong, or you can say Manchester United were profligate or hanging onto old stars, or favoring Rooney, as always, or whatever. Rebuilding? Or you could just watch for a few hours and comment like Lucille Ball: "Ricky, they play like a bunch of ballerinas, they dive and cheat their way to victory, and the coach hasn't got that kind of behavior under control. Ricky, if the captain, doesn't get, how should the team get it - it's just like your band, right?" Wonder when that culture will change.
If you see Max Kruse and his playing style, you might also wonder, despite all that he does, whether he will ever mix in with a team like the Nationalelf. He was the dominant player on a star-studded Borrussia Mönchengladbach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borussia_M%C3%B6nchengladbach#Current_squad side yesterday, but nevertheless, somehow it is the chemistry which counts. With Lucien Favre, Max Kruse is in good hands and a threat with his mobility, selfless passing and good scorring. Will he be given a twin-attacking role by Joachim Löw, like the beautiful pairing he now is with Raffael? One would hope this is possible.
With Moyes and with Alex Ferguson, Shinji Kagawa was without a doubt in less than good hands.
Okay, enough stream-of-consciusness. The plain facts.
After a two-year walk through the wilderness with the very occasional oasis, the services of long-suffering Shinji Kagawa were finally re-acquired by BVB and the Japanese national made his home stadium debut yesterday at Borussia Park to neatly slot in a goal for the traditional coal-mining region club. He also added a butter-soft, beautifully timed and deftly executed assist in the Dortmund club's 3-1 win over Freiburg. Kagawa had demonstrated that kind of presence and brilliant passing on the ManU summer US tour http://tinyurl.com/qywfarb and in the Premiere League but only when given an unqualified, no strings attached chance to. Short-term memory: his pass late in the Real Madrid game on August 2 to Chicharito was fabulous, and Hernandez knew it, giving Shinji all the credit. For one thing: ManU only needed to play and integrate Kagawa for more than 2 matches in a row (shortsightedness) and they would have never finished in that now deserved "only" 7th place spot - leaving them fuming that they have only "two shots at silver" after only a few weeks of their 2014-2015 campaign.
ManU fans are constantly harping on their prayer wheel that Rooney gives it everything he has for the team. Hmm. That is too undifferentiated. He also gives it less when it would help the team, but - ahem - strengthen a player vying for a deserved No. 10 spot, even if his team suffers for it. Just analyze the video when Valencia was on the pitch with Kagawa: how often did the two hook up and give the ball back and forth?
How many times not?
Neutral voice: "Kagawa could be open all day right in front of Rooney and more times than not Rooney will attempt a much more difficult pass." http://tinyurl.com/o4xmo88
With a little team support and endurance on the part of the trainer team, he would be a headline player sometimes, and a deserved regular almost all the time.
Change to the Continent: Now all signs so far indicate he will be a valuable marquee player, a substitute sometimes, too, no doubt, but will have the space to fulfill his promise and expectations in the right context - in the good hands of Jürgen Klopp, master trainer. If this doesn't happen, it would surprise me.
Of course you can say the mix was wrong, or you can say Manchester United were profligate or hanging onto old stars, or favoring Rooney, as always, or whatever. Rebuilding? Or you could just watch for a few hours and comment like Lucille Ball: "Ricky, they play like a bunch of ballerinas, they dive and cheat their way to victory, and the coach hasn't got that kind of behavior under control. Ricky, if the captain, doesn't get, how should the team get it - it's just like your band, right?" Wonder when that culture will change.
If you see Max Kruse and his playing style, you might also wonder, despite all that he does, whether he will ever mix in with a team like the Nationalelf. He was the dominant player on a star-studded Borrussia Mönchengladbach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borussia_M%C3%B6nchengladbach#Current_squad side yesterday, but nevertheless, somehow it is the chemistry which counts. With Lucien Favre, Max Kruse is in good hands and a threat with his mobility, selfless passing and good scorring. Will he be given a twin-attacking role by Joachim Löw, like the beautiful pairing he now is with Raffael? One would hope this is possible.
With Moyes and with Alex Ferguson, Shinji Kagawa was without a doubt in less than good hands.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
How one German paper analyzed the World Cup Final (Germany vs. Argentina) in 2014
A Tactical Look at the World Cup Final
by Tobias Escher and this blogger
[paraphrase translation and own reflections]
How did things play out in the 2014 World Cup Final in Rio de Janeiro at the legendary Estádio do Maracanã.
The blend of veteran and upstart was intriguing: One pairing: 33-year old Martín Demichelis started as a veteran defender for Argentina. Miroslav Klose, 36, started for Germany. The German striker participating in his fourth consecutive semi-final or final at World Cups. A man-of-steel achievement. But Demichelis had also survived the "downsizings" to his own surprise, making the 30- and 23-man cuts and eventually getting an upgrade to the starting 11 from the quarter-finals forward. Having been teammates at Bayern München from 2007 to 2010 made it unlikely that Klose and Demichelis would surprise each other.
[Tobias Escher]
Argentina was willing to let Germany dominate possession and the South Americans set up their two back lines of four defender/midfielders within their own area.
If the Germans hadn't been wary and tried only short passes in one area, leaving the ball in one place would have invited zone pressing and ultimate loss of the ball. Argentina was hoping for counter-attacks, lurking in hope of a mistake. But Germany kept switching sides on their attack (those trademark 35-yard blooping passes from one flank to the other) while tending to attack from Müller and Lahm's right side. This tactic kept the number of times the ball was lost near midfield to a minimum, and kept Argentina from mounting too many counterattacks.
Once Germany did give up possession, it was often at a point "geographically" the farthest away from where Lionel Messi was. The choice on the attack affects the other team's options. This tendency by Germany made it more time-consuming to "feed" Argentina's strong Messi side of the attack on its right.
In a nutshell, Germany kept thwarting a swarm zone defense - and in the Brazilian climate, that tactic made players tired for Argentina. And, if Argentina did regain possession, to make things go faster, they relied on long (hoofed) passes. These passes worked pretty well, even surprisingly so, but the defenders Höwedes, Schweinsteiger and Hummels kept taking turns (co)badgering Messi.
After half-time, the Argentinians switched Messi to the playmaker "10" position, with Sergio Agüero and Gonzalo Higuain as two strikers ahead of him. The Germans gradually responded to this system change, positioning André Schürrle wider, near the touchline to spread out Argentina's 3 midfielders, creating more space to attack the Gauchos. In a low-scoring or 0-0 game, the weak spots aren't noticed quite so soon. Schweinsteiger began to work the wings, orchestrating the German offense, leaving aside defensive responsibilities for others. Germany had mobile players shifting and funneling through - a winger would suck his defender out of an area where a key pass would occur. This was what happened a number of times as Germany tried to force a winning goal rather than wait out extra time for penalties. In the 113th minute, the tactic worked. Götze picked up a great cross snaked through two Argentina defenders covering Schürrle, the new "Super Mario" controlled the inbound pass with his chest and converted the left-footed volley with panache past the outstretched arms of Romero, an iconic goal.
[own analysis]
Funnily enough, when defending a Messi thrust into the German penalty area, Schweinsteiger also made a calculated risk to go over and try to block the pass coming only a few yards away from the goal line, as Argentina did against Schürrle from closer to the touch-line, but Schweinsteiger was never going to let that ball through to the surging Messi.
By contrast, Argentina's defenders let the ball through to Götze. Tired legs. Trophy won. But, to me, much glory must go to Jerome Boateng, who was Man of the Match and, in a finally tally, alongside Hummels, certainly better than Messi in the tournament overall.
But defenders are never singled out for commendation in formal terms - only goalies and strikers. It is the way of the world.
In summary, [Tobias Escher] Germany had an answer to the flow and style of play its opponent put on the pitch in every phase of the game. [own analysis now] Having said that, the tactic used by Argentina to hope to release Lionel Messi - if only one deadly time throughout 120 minutes - was fairly conservative. Why not get Sergio Agüero on the pitch sooner - a man who scored in 53 percent of the games he played at Man City? And had Germany not responded with its balanced but attacking style and fallen into a similarly guarded mode like Holland in the semi-final (how stultifying and uncreative), the final would have become plodding. Instead it became a shrewdly but absorbing game, with its protagonists really playing football and tackling and attacking in the air and on the ground for the planet's most coveted team sport trophy.
Based on http://www.welt.de/sport/fussball/wm-2014/article130122638/Deutschland-wankt-nach-Argentiniens-Systemwechsel.html
by Tobias Escher and this blogger
[paraphrase translation and own reflections]
How did things play out in the 2014 World Cup Final in Rio de Janeiro at the legendary Estádio do Maracanã.
The blend of veteran and upstart was intriguing: One pairing: 33-year old Martín Demichelis started as a veteran defender for Argentina. Miroslav Klose, 36, started for Germany. The German striker participating in his fourth consecutive semi-final or final at World Cups. A man-of-steel achievement. But Demichelis had also survived the "downsizings" to his own surprise, making the 30- and 23-man cuts and eventually getting an upgrade to the starting 11 from the quarter-finals forward. Having been teammates at Bayern München from 2007 to 2010 made it unlikely that Klose and Demichelis would surprise each other.
[Tobias Escher]
Argentina was willing to let Germany dominate possession and the South Americans set up their two back lines of four defender/midfielders within their own area.
If the Germans hadn't been wary and tried only short passes in one area, leaving the ball in one place would have invited zone pressing and ultimate loss of the ball. Argentina was hoping for counter-attacks, lurking in hope of a mistake. But Germany kept switching sides on their attack (those trademark 35-yard blooping passes from one flank to the other) while tending to attack from Müller and Lahm's right side. This tactic kept the number of times the ball was lost near midfield to a minimum, and kept Argentina from mounting too many counterattacks.
Once Germany did give up possession, it was often at a point "geographically" the farthest away from where Lionel Messi was. The choice on the attack affects the other team's options. This tendency by Germany made it more time-consuming to "feed" Argentina's strong Messi side of the attack on its right.
In a nutshell, Germany kept thwarting a swarm zone defense - and in the Brazilian climate, that tactic made players tired for Argentina. And, if Argentina did regain possession, to make things go faster, they relied on long (hoofed) passes. These passes worked pretty well, even surprisingly so, but the defenders Höwedes, Schweinsteiger and Hummels kept taking turns (co)badgering Messi.
After half-time, the Argentinians switched Messi to the playmaker "10" position, with Sergio Agüero and Gonzalo Higuain as two strikers ahead of him. The Germans gradually responded to this system change, positioning André Schürrle wider, near the touchline to spread out Argentina's 3 midfielders, creating more space to attack the Gauchos. In a low-scoring or 0-0 game, the weak spots aren't noticed quite so soon. Schweinsteiger began to work the wings, orchestrating the German offense, leaving aside defensive responsibilities for others. Germany had mobile players shifting and funneling through - a winger would suck his defender out of an area where a key pass would occur. This was what happened a number of times as Germany tried to force a winning goal rather than wait out extra time for penalties. In the 113th minute, the tactic worked. Götze picked up a great cross snaked through two Argentina defenders covering Schürrle, the new "Super Mario" controlled the inbound pass with his chest and converted the left-footed volley with panache past the outstretched arms of Romero, an iconic goal.
[own analysis]
Funnily enough, when defending a Messi thrust into the German penalty area, Schweinsteiger also made a calculated risk to go over and try to block the pass coming only a few yards away from the goal line, as Argentina did against Schürrle from closer to the touch-line, but Schweinsteiger was never going to let that ball through to the surging Messi.
By contrast, Argentina's defenders let the ball through to Götze. Tired legs. Trophy won. But, to me, much glory must go to Jerome Boateng, who was Man of the Match and, in a finally tally, alongside Hummels, certainly better than Messi in the tournament overall.
But defenders are never singled out for commendation in formal terms - only goalies and strikers. It is the way of the world.
In summary, [Tobias Escher] Germany had an answer to the flow and style of play its opponent put on the pitch in every phase of the game. [own analysis now] Having said that, the tactic used by Argentina to hope to release Lionel Messi - if only one deadly time throughout 120 minutes - was fairly conservative. Why not get Sergio Agüero on the pitch sooner - a man who scored in 53 percent of the games he played at Man City? And had Germany not responded with its balanced but attacking style and fallen into a similarly guarded mode like Holland in the semi-final (how stultifying and uncreative), the final would have become plodding. Instead it became a shrewdly but absorbing game, with its protagonists really playing football and tackling and attacking in the air and on the ground for the planet's most coveted team sport trophy.
Based on http://www.welt.de/sport/fussball/wm-2014/article130122638/Deutschland-wankt-nach-Argentiniens-Systemwechsel.html
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Neo Rauch's "The Flame"
Die Flamme. By Neo Rauch.
An emblem or simply thought-provoking with no resolution? Consider this: The liquid or molten appearance of the trailing foot, though far from the distant refinery flare, perhaps in Leuna, strikes me as having some meaning. (Not.) The severely hobbled artist is frozen in mid-stride by two wooden planks [gleichsam/as it were] trussing him, disturbingly so, as though a mirage, that one foot seems to liquefy before your eye. The fluid mind has to finish imagining the self-portrayed artist continuing to pace, with each step of course causing the wooden X to smack him in the head. A freeze-frame shot of letting the lower part of your body do its thing, even if the mind will suffer. (bonk, bonk). There is much to ponder in works bearing the unmistakeable signature of Leipzig artist Neo Rauch (born in 1960). This post encourages all to go or see his art.
Here is another review with a snapshot.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/06/04/070604craw_artworld_schjeldahl?currentPage=all
An emblem or simply thought-provoking with no resolution? Consider this: The liquid or molten appearance of the trailing foot, though far from the distant refinery flare, perhaps in Leuna, strikes me as having some meaning. (Not.) The severely hobbled artist is frozen in mid-stride by two wooden planks [gleichsam/as it were] trussing him, disturbingly so, as though a mirage, that one foot seems to liquefy before your eye. The fluid mind has to finish imagining the self-portrayed artist continuing to pace, with each step of course causing the wooden X to smack him in the head. A freeze-frame shot of letting the lower part of your body do its thing, even if the mind will suffer. (bonk, bonk). There is much to ponder in works bearing the unmistakeable signature of Leipzig artist Neo Rauch (born in 1960). This post encourages all to go or see his art.
Here is another review with a snapshot.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/06/04/070604craw_artworld_schjeldahl?currentPage=all
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Schalke 04 players feature in friendlies in US - a random overview
The much-reduced German squad which flew to Florida a few days ago includes a number of Schalke players. Questions emerged from the US-Belgium pairing pertinent to Schalke as well. Was emerging young stalwart Julian Draxler a force to be reckoned with in the same midfield mix as Ecuadorean Antonio Valencia of ManU in Orlando or simply "gutted" (knackered) from a long season? My verdict: exhausted and a bit too tentative with his body language and what his team-mates wanted to do with him, or he with them. '
The chemistry should have been there for him paired up as he was with familiar faces like Roman Neustädter or Lars Bender - the new scoring menace - from earlier national team efforts: in fact I saw Draxler's teammate Benedikt Höwedes more conspicuously driving forward as a fullback on the "rampage"- but I guess that catches your eye since you only expect Höwedes to infiltrate the Ecuadorean area without it being a set piece a few times a game from the back four. It is probably part of an offensive scenario decided on by the coach, though it makes him look like a captain getting people fired up, which is already his job in Gelsenkirchen.
Those Multilingual Americans and Germans
Various reporters have given Jermaine Jones good but not top marks for his performance in their team's 2-4 loss against Belgium last night. He is a tenacious and tough defender with great range, but sometimes not-quite-so-steady performer going forward, unless it is aerial. He has been tested in quite a few BL and European campaigns and getting a deserved audition in a lead role under Jürgen Klinsmann: I hope he takes his at times hotheaded over-ambition and the potential for unprovoked macho yellow-worthy fouls to heart as a problem worthy of being remedied, as otherwise it will trip him up.Aresenal players Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski put in solid to eye-catchingly dynamic performances respectively, with former Schalker Heiko Westerman, HSV regular Dennis Aogo, and former Leverkusener René Adler representing yet another trio of players from one club - Hamburg HSV. Joachim Löw is cleverly platooning in this reduced 19-man test squad in a way where small sub-units are from one team and thus know each others' moves. Hats off to that sagacity.
I hope Dennis Aogo can acquire a fair bit more aggression so as not to suffer the falling out of grace a too fancy, but insufficiently stout playing style lead to with Piotr Trochowski.
Mertesacker and Westermann are good for headers on set pieces and corners, besides their obvious defending acumen.
As for more areas where players can improve: can these still-rough elements be refined even more by the coaching staff, can a Timothy Chandler be coaxed into being a more lethal closer and controlled strong athlete - and not just be a speedster with a good solid rack of a body. Witness the scoring threat Jonathan Pitroipa now is with Rennes in France, nearly tripling his goal-scoring rate compared to his Hamburg stint. I feel this can be achieved with a young player, especially if the coach of the US team is a former gem of a striker and communicates closely with the regular coach at the player's club.
The fleet-footed attacking Sidney Sam made his German national team debut in tandem with slightly more capped team-mate Lars Bender - thus only lacking Stefan Kießling for a 3-fold Bayer Leverkusen subset of the Nationalelf from the opening whistle. I don't think Mr. Salazar used his whistle again for about 35 minutes after that, encouraging injury-prone fouls. But without top Bundesliga scorer Kießling on the field, that meant soon-to-be Borussia Mönchengladbach-ian Freiburg standout Max Kruse could prove his mettle in his debut, showing good mobility on and off the ball, and the Leverkusen trio - alas - only became a trio when Stefan Reinartz filled in for Neustädter, whose assist to Lars Bender bolstered his chances for inclusion for Brazil in 2014.
Can sharpness/presence be taught?
Last night, during live German TV satellite coverage of the game in Orlando, I think I heard Jogi Loew scream: "Aaron Hunt, play defense!!" at the top of his voice, to snap him out of a bit of lethargy (the season was tough upstream slog, but with career-high 11 BL goals for Hunt) just seconds after he was subbed in. But in his defense, Hunt is a very experienced player with CL cred who paces himself, with dashes of speed when it counts, dishing off smart give-and-goes, and seam-slicing passes at pace and getting off strikes on goal, when it matters, or from the PK spot. This offsets calorie-saving "paced" running on the field or a "down" and inattentive moment as was perhaps seen in the US-Belgian friendly yesterday.
Take for example
Every time the name Christian Benteke comes up, I think of Robert Lewandowski's similarly excellent shielding of the ball when controlling "service" passes, something the two accomplish with unmatched poise, basketball-like positioning skill (box out! to "clear the boards!") and pure strength,with burly physical presence made lethal by adept ball skills in their closing and attacking game.
Seeming nonchalance
Generally speaking, Jerome Boateng and Mesut Özil also both look deceptively nonchalant on the pitch - but that is just appearances - Özil will beat you down the sideline 70% of the time if you are not sharp, and Boateng won't let you outsprint him to a knocked-free ball or to the end-line 95% of the time. I am sure a player like Goodson for the US always wants to have that hustle on defense when it counts. Zooming individual and hopefully one-off errors to the size of Iran in Reagan's mental 1970s/80s world map though, may be counterproductive.
US Outlook and comments about Klinsmann salary
Hopefully, the strongly up-ticking soccer game in the US will see reporters and fans get behind the US players no matter what their "provenance" and Jürgen Klinsmann, no matter what detractors say, while he earns his pay both for qualification and hopefully being a presence in its WC group, for starters. Hopes beyond that are of course fervent, and, as Grant Wahl posited, exacting "damage" in a knock-out phase a likely aspiration given the 2010 showing, provided the team chemistry can come to a good boil, gel and be turned into a much-anticipated Brazilian tournament standout squad.
The chemistry should have been there for him paired up as he was with familiar faces like Roman Neustädter or Lars Bender - the new scoring menace - from earlier national team efforts: in fact I saw Draxler's teammate Benedikt Höwedes more conspicuously driving forward as a fullback on the "rampage"- but I guess that catches your eye since you only expect Höwedes to infiltrate the Ecuadorean area without it being a set piece a few times a game from the back four. It is probably part of an offensive scenario decided on by the coach, though it makes him look like a captain getting people fired up, which is already his job in Gelsenkirchen.
Those Multilingual Americans and Germans
Various reporters have given Jermaine Jones good but not top marks for his performance in their team's 2-4 loss against Belgium last night. He is a tenacious and tough defender with great range, but sometimes not-quite-so-steady performer going forward, unless it is aerial. He has been tested in quite a few BL and European campaigns and getting a deserved audition in a lead role under Jürgen Klinsmann: I hope he takes his at times hotheaded over-ambition and the potential for unprovoked macho yellow-worthy fouls to heart as a problem worthy of being remedied, as otherwise it will trip him up.Aresenal players Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski put in solid to eye-catchingly dynamic performances respectively, with former Schalker Heiko Westerman, HSV regular Dennis Aogo, and former Leverkusener René Adler representing yet another trio of players from one club - Hamburg HSV. Joachim Löw is cleverly platooning in this reduced 19-man test squad in a way where small sub-units are from one team and thus know each others' moves. Hats off to that sagacity.
I hope Dennis Aogo can acquire a fair bit more aggression so as not to suffer the falling out of grace a too fancy, but insufficiently stout playing style lead to with Piotr Trochowski.
Mertesacker and Westermann are good for headers on set pieces and corners, besides their obvious defending acumen.
As for more areas where players can improve: can these still-rough elements be refined even more by the coaching staff, can a Timothy Chandler be coaxed into being a more lethal closer and controlled strong athlete - and not just be a speedster with a good solid rack of a body. Witness the scoring threat Jonathan Pitroipa now is with Rennes in France, nearly tripling his goal-scoring rate compared to his Hamburg stint. I feel this can be achieved with a young player, especially if the coach of the US team is a former gem of a striker and communicates closely with the regular coach at the player's club.
The fleet-footed attacking Sidney Sam made his German national team debut in tandem with slightly more capped team-mate Lars Bender - thus only lacking Stefan Kießling for a 3-fold Bayer Leverkusen subset of the Nationalelf from the opening whistle. I don't think Mr. Salazar used his whistle again for about 35 minutes after that, encouraging injury-prone fouls. But without top Bundesliga scorer Kießling on the field, that meant soon-to-be Borussia Mönchengladbach-ian Freiburg standout Max Kruse could prove his mettle in his debut, showing good mobility on and off the ball, and the Leverkusen trio - alas - only became a trio when Stefan Reinartz filled in for Neustädter, whose assist to Lars Bender bolstered his chances for inclusion for Brazil in 2014.
Can sharpness/presence be taught?
Last night, during live German TV satellite coverage of the game in Orlando, I think I heard Jogi Loew scream: "Aaron Hunt, play defense!!" at the top of his voice, to snap him out of a bit of lethargy (the season was tough upstream slog, but with career-high 11 BL goals for Hunt) just seconds after he was subbed in. But in his defense, Hunt is a very experienced player with CL cred who paces himself, with dashes of speed when it counts, dishing off smart give-and-goes, and seam-slicing passes at pace and getting off strikes on goal, when it matters, or from the PK spot. This offsets calorie-saving "paced" running on the field or a "down" and inattentive moment as was perhaps seen in the US-Belgian friendly yesterday.
Take for example
Every time the name Christian Benteke comes up, I think of Robert Lewandowski's similarly excellent shielding of the ball when controlling "service" passes, something the two accomplish with unmatched poise, basketball-like positioning skill (box out! to "clear the boards!") and pure strength,with burly physical presence made lethal by adept ball skills in their closing and attacking game.
Seeming nonchalance
Generally speaking, Jerome Boateng and Mesut Özil also both look deceptively nonchalant on the pitch - but that is just appearances - Özil will beat you down the sideline 70% of the time if you are not sharp, and Boateng won't let you outsprint him to a knocked-free ball or to the end-line 95% of the time. I am sure a player like Goodson for the US always wants to have that hustle on defense when it counts. Zooming individual and hopefully one-off errors to the size of Iran in Reagan's mental 1970s/80s world map though, may be counterproductive.
US Outlook and comments about Klinsmann salary
Hopefully, the strongly up-ticking soccer game in the US will see reporters and fans get behind the US players no matter what their "provenance" and Jürgen Klinsmann, no matter what detractors say, while he earns his pay both for qualification and hopefully being a presence in its WC group, for starters. Hopes beyond that are of course fervent, and, as Grant Wahl posited, exacting "damage" in a knock-out phase a likely aspiration given the 2010 showing, provided the team chemistry can come to a good boil, gel and be turned into a much-anticipated Brazilian tournament standout squad.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
User manual translations market cornered. Market riddled with charlatans.
User manual translations vanish from market
The business for translating German-to-English manuals for technology companies has shrunk dramatically for "normal-priced" freelance translators. I have noted this nosedive in the manuals business because all incoming orders for this type of work have come to a complete standstill here in our office.
An informal benchmark/unheard of dumping price
I have asked several colleagues who agree about this trend, and we have made an educated
guess - a "guess-timate" - that the combination of technology, with leveraged
and reusable translation memories, and end customers
sending most or all work to agencies who have reduced their prices by sourcing
suppliers who oftentimes offer to do work for 3 or 4 to 6 cents (euro-cents) a word. I was asked via the proz.com platform to do 2,500 words for 5 cents a word just today - of course the deadline was before April is more than a few hours old (this year) and the rest would only be placed as an order (10,000 more words) if you agreed to the pain up front.
The aggregate effect has killed off the normal wage market for translating manuals (from German to English) in Germany.
The aggregate effect has killed off the normal wage market for translating manuals (from German to English) in Germany.
The market for homeowners who vacation 3x a year, but are translators
Forget the very respectable pay of the Foreign Office or some of the major government-run banks which pay over or far more than €1.70 a line = 25
euro-cents/word, or boardroom briefings, which can be quite sensitive and call for experience and linguistic acumen, which is paid at a rate of at least 22 cents
per German word - yes German words are longer, so there are sometimes "only" seven words per line in a text.
There is a market for respectable work for a fair price, but it has been pummeled to the size of a battered meatball by price-cutting procurement practices.
Good pay on a feudal see-saw
There is a market for respectable work for a fair price, but it has been pummeled to the size of a battered meatball by price-cutting procurement practices.
Good pay on a feudal see-saw
But at the same time, if the department who drove the prices down then sends an agency a total of two days of
work on a Friday morning, they expect the translator to work on the weekend for
no extra pay and the job delivered on Monday afternoon - after the agency had part of Monday to check your work. This means they take the liberty of not warning a trusted supplier in advance and assume that good people will be available, with no regard to time off, which translators need, no matter how late they request rush work to be completed.
Meanwhile, at the factory assembly line workers earn time-and-a-half for holiday/weekend work.
So if a Fortune 500 German conglomerate issues a news item of 650 words, an agency will (be expected to) charge anywhere from 20 to 25 cents a word or higher, or be "guilty" of ruining standard market prices. However, the agency translator is not allowed to bid to the agency; he or she is only allowed to "swallow" the predetermined pricing of 11 cents/word.
The tacit agreement is regular work for the agency translator for one set fee, no matter how hard or easy the content or the damage which could result from the delivered product not making the right impression. 'Friß oder stirb' is the German adage for this, meaning "Take it, or leave it." ... but using language reserved for animals.
Meanwhile, at the factory assembly line workers earn time-and-a-half for holiday/weekend work.
So if a Fortune 500 German conglomerate issues a news item of 650 words, an agency will (be expected to) charge anywhere from 20 to 25 cents a word or higher, or be "guilty" of ruining standard market prices. However, the agency translator is not allowed to bid to the agency; he or she is only allowed to "swallow" the predetermined pricing of 11 cents/word.
The tacit agreement is regular work for the agency translator for one set fee, no matter how hard or easy the content or the damage which could result from the delivered product not making the right impression. 'Friß oder stirb' is the German adage for this, meaning "Take it, or leave it." ... but using language reserved for animals.
Tarred and feathered for starting dialogue
All backtalk is squelched, and your name thrown off their supplier
list if you call them out.
Been there. Done that.
Been there. Done that.
This has meant fewer and fewer translators can continue to make a respectable income in a skilled profession where you have to be very good at 1) handling manuals content and all the related terminology/content management interfaces and 2) producing clear native-language subject-matter-expert level content for systems which are often highly sensitive or potentially dangerous.
A local profession of, usually, fluent emigrés who understand Germany and how it ticks is being systematically gagged and forced overseas or into the hinterland. You are a translator? No opera for you, no jazz clubs, just chickens and goats. Sorry. Yes, we do expect you to translate difficult operatic/classical music content, obviously, but you may only cultivate your abilities on TV or the Web. Hope that's okay.
Profit motive produces nameless bumblers
There are scores of agencies making 75 to 125 percent profit for checking and sending in what spotty quality they manage to get out of the very low-priced suppliers. If they check it at all. Rather than pay a fair price to the skilled self-employed contractor/translator, they remove part of that person's function and push it up the supply chain by having the missing quality tested/corrected/edited into the faulty product which is faulty because it is done by incompetent or unpredictable and (luckily?) anonymous individuals - many doing it as a housekeeper or on the side while the spouse supports them.
Cost-cutters without logic - what goes round, comes round
As part of this trend, companies like subsidiaries of major worldwide
manufacturers with "cost-cutting" procurement divisions, only three
years ago demanded a 4-cent and 2-cent reduction per word in agency pricing, respectively, without any explanation as to why. When our
office said No Way! the work was sent elsewhere, so we are told by our agencies
out in the field who try to find work for us.
Just before entering negotiations, the reason we were being approached, said our middlemen, was that there were huge quality issues from outsourcing the work to India at a cut rate over a period of several years.
That was not the reason for demanding a huge price cut - that was the reason for coming to a big city agency in Germany again, on their proverbial hands and knees. How schizophrenic. That brought collaborations which had been cultivated for half a decade to an abrupt end.
Shoptalk insights, the stench of greed
Just before entering negotiations, the reason we were being approached, said our middlemen, was that there were huge quality issues from outsourcing the work to India at a cut rate over a period of several years.
That was not the reason for demanding a huge price cut - that was the reason for coming to a big city agency in Germany again, on their proverbial hands and knees. How schizophrenic. That brought collaborations which had been cultivated for half a decade to an abrupt end.
Shoptalk insights, the stench of greed
Before the arrangement ended, I would sometimes get agency work and find Hungarian and
Romanian names in the translation memory, mixed in with my well-translated
sentences, and found fairly bad errors in their content. This meant, to
maximize profit, jobs where I had done the same product manual six times before were then
sent to a slashed-price market for a couple years, where my
translation results were leveraged to produce translations which could, somehow, be invoiced with the end
customer. After all, their English was not really good enough to assess what they were getting. Mind you, I myself had to already give discounts for content repetition or highly similar phrasings. If a bad complaint came from the end customer, then I would have to step in to
work on the company's manuals again - as the clean-up man - as they could no longer risk continuing with low-quality suppliers.
Please don't get me wrong, I have friends in these countries, be it Hungary, Romania, the Philippines or India - but I do not enter a school and try to teach Romanian or Hungarian, or Hindu or Tagalog, as a classroom teacher, which is what I consider doing demanding industry manual translations as a non-native speaker amounts to, while also even more dangerous and negligent. However, I readily train and teach my colleagues all about my language, even if I know they might "cut into" my market share, because I know I can count on those colleagues for larger projects, when we all help each other deliver translations in multiple languages. What I do insist on is complete bilingual competence and aptitude for the job.
Please don't get me wrong, I have friends in these countries, be it Hungary, Romania, the Philippines or India - but I do not enter a school and try to teach Romanian or Hungarian, or Hindu or Tagalog, as a classroom teacher, which is what I consider doing demanding industry manual translations as a non-native speaker amounts to, while also even more dangerous and negligent. However, I readily train and teach my colleagues all about my language, even if I know they might "cut into" my market share, because I know I can count on those colleagues for larger projects, when we all help each other deliver translations in multiple languages. What I do insist on is complete bilingual competence and aptitude for the job.
Flummoxed by Benelux
Two years ago: a person who described herself as a translation industry association member
bid for a Benelux job at 50% less than the normal price. The end
customer, a wealth manager, said to me, hmmm: your price is far higher than the
other bid, please explain. When I told him what the other bidder had done, he
responded with silence, but felt named and blamed enough to place the order with me.
But he never ordered from me again.
But he never ordered from me again.
Outsource yourself to the Carpathians
For four years now, a major international automotive company has actively recruited
translators to work 40 hours a week at an Eastern European location through an agency located there, in a securely supervised building, on their computers, not your own, but
without a permanent contract. The initial period of work would be up to six months for (3,500 euros/month four years ago) 4,000 euros a month (recently offered).
Agreeing to such an offer may seem lucrative, but there is no guarantee that the automotive placement agency in eastern Europe would keep you busy after six months, and you would be neglecting your regular business with customers - or have to work evenings to keep those clients happy, too. This is an example of how a trade in Germany has been attacked by globalization. Basically they want to "own the translator" but not offer the terms commensurate with owning their time: a full-time position, as opposed to a time contract.
An aside on inflation/cost of living
Agreeing to such an offer may seem lucrative, but there is no guarantee that the automotive placement agency in eastern Europe would keep you busy after six months, and you would be neglecting your regular business with customers - or have to work evenings to keep those clients happy, too. This is an example of how a trade in Germany has been attacked by globalization. Basically they want to "own the translator" but not offer the terms commensurate with owning their time: a full-time position, as opposed to a time contract.
An aside on inflation/cost of living
Notice how the pay figure in the above section has
gone up, maybe because people are hard to find for that, or because of
inflation? There has been no inflation-adjusted pay raise for translators for
over ten years that I have heard about. Period. Inflation-adjusted income has
dropped by up to 30% in Germany since the 1980s, and my US inflation calculator says that
if my line price remained unchanged since 2001 but in the same period something
which cost a dollar back in 2001 now costs $1.25 to $1.30. That means across
the board there has been at least a 25% price discount through creeping
inflation from 2001 to 2013. Robert Conrad would say: "I dare you to raise your prices now, after over ten years, by say a modicum step of 10 percent - I dare you." Tell all your agencies who have paid 90 cents a line for 12 years the price is now: €1.15 or €1.20 and wait for your phone to ring while it gathers dust. If you misplace your smartphone, in this case it won't matter.
Upshot? Dialogue not desired
If I reported finding bad results
in the "translation memory" my agency provided me with, I was essentially ignored. If I asked why I was not given work for that customer for two years, I was ignored. As an individual, we are powerless to stop practices like these unless
the agency and end-customer view us professionals on the local market as
partners, with respect and real dialog going in both directions. Good work attracts good clients, everything else is pearls before cutlets.
The precarious playing field
That is why I value the relationships I now have with my intermediaries and end customers. Unfair practices outlined above are not given any oxygen in the customer-supplier relationship and you can afford to live a modestly (comfortable) life, avoid working weekends about 1/3 the time, have children (imagine!), become a grandparent eventually, without wondering - like so many in Munich, Hamburg and New York City wonder, if you will have to move to a hovel when you turn 70, and occasionally take a longer break from the impossible deadlines caused by content producers unwilling/thoughtless enough to not give translators advance warning about when they will finish their work (on time) like we always have to.
If you have identified any of your practices in this blog post, I hope you will consider it free advice (to stop doing it), meant in the spirit of mutual respect.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Coverage of Champions League on various fronts
The southern German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, based in Munich, had no trouble trusting its reflexes - and featured the news of the 4-0 victory by local Bayern Muenchen side as it outclassed the outstanding and famous Barcelona team in a 4-0 exhibition. It was a perfectly executed game plan masterminded by Jupp Heynckes, but which the team might have won anyway, without the deft strategy they carried out on the pitch. Big front page lead story yesterday on sz.de
Hats off to Dortmund, especially the fans who showed they can close ranks behind one of their team's young player in loyalty despite the Bayern Munich people choosing the eve of the Dortmund side's match against Real Madrid in the CL semi-final (in a war of attrition and legal poaching) to announce signing Dortmund's star player, who played very well, incidentally. Yes, I mean Mario Götze (Goetze).
But I am leaving my hat squarely on my head for the editors at Suedeutsche Zeitung for showing favoritism. Today, the news of the equally impressive, perhaps almost historic, but in fact against-many-odds win of Dortmund against the other top club from Spain, Real Madrid in the same competition, managed to coax its way into the 4th or 5th spot on the page at sz.de. Okay, some people might go and throw weisswurst (or a Nuremberg bratwurst) or epithets at the newspaper's building if Dortmund gets more coverage than Ulli Hoeness's illegal tax evasion and alleged kickback (get it?) from adidas. But I know they won't respond to this, they have never once responded to my e-mails to their editorial staff with useful hints, but I know they are busy deciding which stories to run first, second, third, fourth, and - yes Dortmund's win - fifth. After a higher-ranked news item on many German companies not paying minimum wage. And the news-worth(ier) story of Seehofer denying he showed favoritism to Hoeness. Horst Seehofer, Christian Social Union chief and Bavarias prime-minister once said: when Bayern Muenchen is doing well, Bavaria is doing well - and the blue-and-white checkered Bavarian legal audit authority (Rechnungshof) says there is a chronic lack of tax investigators who might track down more people suspected of tax fraud such as Ulli Hoeneß (Ulli Hoeness), president and CEO of Bayern Muenchen.
Barry Glendinning has jokingly identified the ingenious Kloppo, aka as His Kloppness, as an eccentric, Jupp Heynckes is not mentioned enough in reporting, and okay, saying the reason Manchester United failed to get farther (American leeches are supposedly to blame) is perhaps Victrola's Empire dog's Master's voice speaking with part of its cortex. Or joking that a Spanish center back will dally away the defeat with his supermodel dearest -- all this rather than actually providing insightful tea-time talk about football on the Continent - where was that again, oh dear, it's five already, bring me some Early Grey and some scaaahhns. Are those hornets out there, or that yellowjacket side from "Theremouth," near Sid-mouth and (S)port(s)mouth. Errr leeches, or verm(in)mouth.
But last night showed that a writer can wax lyrical in the moment: After some initial and realistically couched pessimism and making fun of Paula, Barry Glendinning predicts Dortmund will be nasty to Mario Götze, which they were decidedly not: the wrath never appeared, only whistles for ref. He then comes through with wonderful commentary on the match: "Schmelzer ... smashed... a hopeful low diagonal hail-mary drive through the Real Madrid penalty area. The ball came to the feet of Pepe, but before he could hack clear, Lewandowski took possession with one touch of his right and performed a drag-back with his left before turning on a sixpence and sending an unstoppable screamer into the roof of the net from nine or 10 yards out."
Thank you Barry Glendinning, you have a knack for humor and very enjoyable commentary. The fans applauded Götze at the end, too, and you said they would deride him. Last night proved what great fan culture means. One budget against the other, an essentially majority non-Spanish side against an essentially majority German side.
Hats off to Dortmund, especially the fans who showed they can close ranks behind one of their team's young player in loyalty despite the Bayern Munich people choosing the eve of the Dortmund side's match against Real Madrid in the CL semi-final (in a war of attrition and legal poaching) to announce signing Dortmund's star player, who played very well, incidentally. Yes, I mean Mario Götze (Goetze).
But I am leaving my hat squarely on my head for the editors at Suedeutsche Zeitung for showing favoritism. Today, the news of the equally impressive, perhaps almost historic, but in fact against-many-odds win of Dortmund against the other top club from Spain, Real Madrid in the same competition, managed to coax its way into the 4th or 5th spot on the page at sz.de. Okay, some people might go and throw weisswurst (or a Nuremberg bratwurst) or epithets at the newspaper's building if Dortmund gets more coverage than Ulli Hoeness's illegal tax evasion and alleged kickback (get it?) from adidas. But I know they won't respond to this, they have never once responded to my e-mails to their editorial staff with useful hints, but I know they are busy deciding which stories to run first, second, third, fourth, and - yes Dortmund's win - fifth. After a higher-ranked news item on many German companies not paying minimum wage. And the news-worth(ier) story of Seehofer denying he showed favoritism to Hoeness. Horst Seehofer, Christian Social Union chief and Bavarias prime-minister once said: when Bayern Muenchen is doing well, Bavaria is doing well - and the blue-and-white checkered Bavarian legal audit authority (Rechnungshof) says there is a chronic lack of tax investigators who might track down more people suspected of tax fraud such as Ulli Hoeneß (Ulli Hoeness), president and CEO of Bayern Muenchen.
Barry Glendinning has jokingly identified the ingenious Kloppo, aka as His Kloppness, as an eccentric, Jupp Heynckes is not mentioned enough in reporting, and okay, saying the reason Manchester United failed to get farther (American leeches are supposedly to blame) is perhaps Victrola's Empire dog's Master's voice speaking with part of its cortex. Or joking that a Spanish center back will dally away the defeat with his supermodel dearest -- all this rather than actually providing insightful tea-time talk about football on the Continent - where was that again, oh dear, it's five already, bring me some Early Grey and some scaaahhns. Are those hornets out there, or that yellowjacket side from "Theremouth," near Sid-mouth and (S)port(s)mouth. Errr leeches, or verm(in)mouth.
But last night showed that a writer can wax lyrical in the moment: After some initial and realistically couched pessimism and making fun of Paula, Barry Glendinning predicts Dortmund will be nasty to Mario Götze, which they were decidedly not: the wrath never appeared, only whistles for ref. He then comes through with wonderful commentary on the match: "Schmelzer ... smashed... a hopeful low diagonal hail-mary drive through the Real Madrid penalty area. The ball came to the feet of Pepe, but before he could hack clear, Lewandowski took possession with one touch of his right and performed a drag-back with his left before turning on a sixpence and sending an unstoppable screamer into the roof of the net from nine or 10 yards out."
Thank you Barry Glendinning, you have a knack for humor and very enjoyable commentary. The fans applauded Götze at the end, too, and you said they would deride him. Last night proved what great fan culture means. One budget against the other, an essentially majority non-Spanish side against an essentially majority German side.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Williston, North Dakota and Fracking
I respectfully submit that, if natural gas is coming from fracking, people and the land and water affected in the region would be better
protected if companies such as Halliburton or Statoil were statutorily required to
disclose all risks and all chemicals pumped into the earth and state in
full candor whether their fracking practices harm(ed) the environment now or in the future. And if so, be forced to pay the price to meet a higher standard or phase out the practice.
Plus, existing laws which forbid mining and upstream gas operations not
tenable or commensurate with good husbandry and good stewardship of lands need
to be enforced. Is pollution happening? Is tainted/radioactive waste water being diluted and allowed to enter water treatment supplies? The resources and land need to be seen
not merely as "ours to keep" and "exploit," come what may, but for us to respect
and handle sustainably. This is what my Dad, who was director of the Dakota
Leadership Program, woke me up about one November morning when Jimmy Carter was elected
president. He was so thrilled that a conservator had been chosen to lead our
country. I notice how silent people get when anything political is mentioned. And I hope Statoil has the guts to admit its ways are flawed and acknowledge their software helps in making harm happen more quickly.
A new thought comes to me: I once met a potato pathologist from Grand Forks, ND who was assigned to
help work out what had blighted part of a potato crop in the Ukraine. We
happened to be sitting next to each other on a long-haul flight and I
recognized the worn round spot on the butt pocket of his jeans from his can of SKOAL, outing him as a Dakotan. Imagine: he was sent so far abroad to help reveal what was going wrong with
farming the earth on another continent.
Perhaps soil and farming specialists can also help explain what's wrong with the approach being taken in their very own back yard in places like Williston, in a faraway corner of North Dakota, using Statoil's fracking expertise and proprietary and undisclosed chemical cocktail right in our potato pathologist's own state.
Perhaps soil and farming specialists can also help explain what's wrong with the approach being taken in their very own back yard in places like Williston, in a faraway corner of North Dakota, using Statoil's fracking expertise and proprietary and undisclosed chemical cocktail right in our potato pathologist's own state.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Young-uns, scrimmaging on the field and touchline
Back in September, I watched Tom Ince combine wonderfully down the left side with teammates Danny Rose and Jonjo Shelvley in an under-21 international in Baku, and voila, now Ince has popped 13 goals in so far at Blackpool, prompting Swansea/Laudrup to bid for him. Rose also rightfully bristled at racial abuse suffered in Serbia, and recent punishment handed down by FIFA against Bulgaria and Hungary were no doubt also spurred (pardon me) by the brawl after the Serbia match won by the England squad. If Swansea gets Ince, it will make their attacking midfield on the left more formidable. Explaining why Liverpool also wants him. When watching the match in Baku, Georgiana Turner said:
https://twitter.com/georgina_turner/status/243730787936108545
Rose-Ince-Shelvey are effective coming down left side (Zaha was having a less great night)
Lewis Holtby http://www.transfermarkt.de/de/lewis-holtby/profil/spieler_55508.html is also arriving at Tottenham in the near future, making the Rose/Holtby combo quite a formidable one, if they are fielded regularly together. Will see. Stay tuned for how this plays out.
https://twitter.com/georgina_turner/status/243730787936108545
Rose-Ince-Shelvey are effective coming down left side (Zaha was having a less great night)
Lewis Holtby http://www.transfermarkt.de/de/lewis-holtby/profil/spieler_55508.html is also arriving at Tottenham in the near future, making the Rose/Holtby combo quite a formidable one, if they are fielded regularly together. Will see. Stay tuned for how this plays out.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Too svelte to belt (Gustavo and Kroos): Supported by a Great Back Four
Luiz Gustavo and even more so Toni Kroos inject something almost balletic into the grand worldwide sport of soccer - moving gracefully, even sprinting suavely, passing the ball around the pitch, at times knotting the legs of Naples midfielders and back four, at the very least helping to tire the opponent out by skilful ball circulation and immediately relocating their own selves, scooting as it were, all in synch with proven "senior" players like Schweinsteiger and Lahm - who are in and of themselves always creative and stable going forward or on defense. To tell you the truth - damn! - I really have not seen Toni Kroos go down needlessly or sloppily ever since I started watching him in a junior national German team almost two years ago - like Lahm, he will not dive, his inner ethos won't allow it. Can one venture to say that Kroos thus has the makings of Giggs or Raul, and will never be sent off, ever? His body motions are full of grace--not unlike Gustavo, who mirrors his teammate's slicing dolphin elegance, though in Gustavo's eyes you can for the moment still see the calculations and youthful inexperience still "impressing him" in his moves, quite proud, and rightly so, to be a newly nominated member of the Selecao in Brazil and wearing the red of Bayern München. Not so Kroos. His quarterbacking/playmaking skills, dangerously volleyed, mid-range and set-piece shots combined by his elegance is a sheer joy to watch, for Joachim Löw's national squad and for Munich.
What now to make of the curious blend of physical height, dribbling and passing skills of the center backs (van Buyten, Badstuber and Badstuber's equally young fellow international Jerome Boateng as the redwoods) and full back Philip Lahm in his inimicable, less towering play? Last night in the Champions League match, there seemed to be a slowly encroaching wave of offensive power originating in well-timed and none-too-soft passes whether turf-hugging or airborne, emanating from any one of them. Like variegated Neptune spear thrusts, they executed what one player, Borussia Dortmund's Mats Hummels, often must do alone - getting a creative crease-slicing pass down to his midfielder or striker teammates. But there's more - they all showed they can move downfield themselves, Lahm in his creative, dodging/dribbbling drives from side to center, van Buyten, well past the holding midfielder area, beyond the halfway line, eyes toward the goal, creating opportunities, not only on corner kick headers - and, one must add, not in the way Guy Demel always, yes, always used to for Hamburg, going almost to the goal line before a predictable cross, but with a pass just before the 18-yard-box which poses a real threat of Gomez, Ribery Kroos nailing a goal - while allowing him to play defense and not scoot back behind a counter-attack. And Boateng has been drilled in Manchester or with Joachim Löw to stop doing long, inaccurate passes, but instead far less frequent and shorter passes which are 5 times better. He has evolved into a formidable player - still a bit of a hothead - from 2 years ago to where he is now - stabilizing the defense of Germany's best team and adding a potent, swift-footed and well-considered passing game to his powerful physique. A tremendously sage move by Bayern München higher-ups.
If the rumor is true that Boateng would tell his U-20 German international teammates to open a window using streetwise hoodlum talk: "Fenster auf, Opfer" (open the window, victim) - now the Bundesliga and CL opponents will have to figure out how to get the better of him or they'll be victims, too while onlookers can claim having looked on as willing victims in their admiration.
What now to make of the curious blend of physical height, dribbling and passing skills of the center backs (van Buyten, Badstuber and Badstuber's equally young fellow international Jerome Boateng as the redwoods) and full back Philip Lahm in his inimicable, less towering play? Last night in the Champions League match, there seemed to be a slowly encroaching wave of offensive power originating in well-timed and none-too-soft passes whether turf-hugging or airborne, emanating from any one of them. Like variegated Neptune spear thrusts, they executed what one player, Borussia Dortmund's Mats Hummels, often must do alone - getting a creative crease-slicing pass down to his midfielder or striker teammates. But there's more - they all showed they can move downfield themselves, Lahm in his creative, dodging/dribbbling drives from side to center, van Buyten, well past the holding midfielder area, beyond the halfway line, eyes toward the goal, creating opportunities, not only on corner kick headers - and, one must add, not in the way Guy Demel always, yes, always used to for Hamburg, going almost to the goal line before a predictable cross, but with a pass just before the 18-yard-box which poses a real threat of Gomez, Ribery Kroos nailing a goal - while allowing him to play defense and not scoot back behind a counter-attack. And Boateng has been drilled in Manchester or with Joachim Löw to stop doing long, inaccurate passes, but instead far less frequent and shorter passes which are 5 times better. He has evolved into a formidable player - still a bit of a hothead - from 2 years ago to where he is now - stabilizing the defense of Germany's best team and adding a potent, swift-footed and well-considered passing game to his powerful physique. A tremendously sage move by Bayern München higher-ups.
If the rumor is true that Boateng would tell his U-20 German international teammates to open a window using streetwise hoodlum talk: "Fenster auf, Opfer" (open the window, victim) - now the Bundesliga and CL opponents will have to figure out how to get the better of him or they'll be victims, too while onlookers can claim having looked on as willing victims in their admiration.
Monday, September 27, 2010
World Cup Donuts for Germany
This is my kind of (coffee and) kuchen. US-style donuts covered with ice-cream sprinkles to help get into the spirit of things during the World Cup in 2010. I begged the Hamburg woman behind the counter at the Langenhorn-Markt U-Bahn station to allow me to take her picture - she had hash-marked her cheeks with Red, Yellow and Black for Germany. She finally allowed me a couple days later. But I think the donuts are the hit. Germany finished in 3rd place again after going far in 2006. Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira impressed, even wowed audiences, and Bastian Schweinsteiger and Miroslav Klose also were stalwart producers. The way they romped past England and Argentina capture the hearts of many fans the world over.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Part of a quote is not always enough
The failure of the press to correctly quote and correctly translate a portion of an interview with German President Horst Köhler in its original context has put the press on thin ice. An interview with President Horst Köhler was recently translated into slightly simplified form from the German, leaving out key contextual signals. Given how easy it is to get complete information nowadays, this is unprofessional and too lax. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/world/europe/01germany.html
Here is the quoted statement made by President Köhler in an interview on May 21 or May 22 on his way back from visiting German troops in Afghanistan.
He was speaking in general terms, no longer about Afghanistan specifically. He had already expressed his support for the troops and said they were there to ensure the security of Germany. What followed this was what the German press jumped on and distorted:
Now people are saying he was insulted. I beg to differ, he was more than insulted, he was made a target and misrepresented in a "soft blow" "hatchet job." This is a proven method of look-away mobbing and his response to silent mobbing while in office was appropriate, because his person and his high office were each maligned by "sins of omission."
I will remember his courage and feeling for others, on the Winnenden shootings, on the monstrous visage of short-term profiteering, which he decried in the most unequivocal terms and his deep interest in the destiny and circumstances of many people in Germany and especially Africa.
It seems a bit oversimplified for Germany's ARD to claim that Germans "don't understand" his resignation - the ease with which a publicly-financed broadcaster feels called upon to say what Germans think and pretend to be able to gauge this, even before it has sunk in, amounts to arrogance and presumptuousness. Even when their air time is paid for by the people, ARD has overstepped professional tenets and standards.
Here is the quoted statement made by President Köhler in an interview on May 21 or May 22 on his way back from visiting German troops in Afghanistan.
He was speaking in general terms, no longer about Afghanistan specifically. He had already expressed his support for the troops and said they were there to ensure the security of Germany. What followed this was what the German press jumped on and distorted:
"Meine Einschätzung ist aber, dass insgesamt wir auf dem Wege sind, doch auch in der Breite der Gesellschaft zu verstehen, dass ein Land unserer Größe mit dieser Außenhandelsorientierung und damit auch Außenhandelsabhängigkeit auch wissen muss, dass im Zweifel, im Notfall auch militärischer Einsatz notwendig ist, um unsere Interessen zu wahren, zum Beispiel freie Handelswege, zum Beispiel ganze regionale Instabilitäten zu verhindern, die mit Sicherheit dann auch auf unsere Chancen zurückschlagen negativ durch Handel, Arbeitsplätze und Einkommen. Alles das soll diskutiert werden und ich glaube, wir sind auf einem nicht so schlechten Weg."
"My assessment however is that in general we are moving toward [the realization], in fact coming to understand throughout society, that a country of our size with its focus on foreign trade and thus also dependence on foreign trade, also must know that in case of doubt, in an emergency, military action is necessary in order to safeguard our interests, for example [keeping] trade routes free, for example preventing regional instabilities, which are certain to have a negative impact on trade, jobs, and income. This should all be discussed and I think the start we have made is not bad.” (my translation)That is the complete version, with the omitted portions in bold. A bungled and shortened version of his statement is reported by the New York Times with all things apparently up to standard today, meaning they multiplied the misrepresentation. Here is the NY Times version, available as the full story at the beginning of this post:
“A country of our size,” he said, “with its focus on exports and thus reliance on foreign trade, must be aware that military deployments are necessary in an emergency to protect our interests, for example, when it comes to trade routes, for example, when it comes to preventing regional instabilities that could negatively influence our trade, jobs and incomes.”This version omits the previous sentence that people across society are coming to this realization, so the New York Time makes it sound like "people have to 'get it' and gain this awareness." That is grossly unfair. Especially if journalists repeat a mistake again in translation by not doing their homework. President Köhler was fulfilling his job and speaking in broad strokes, his only option for having an impact since his office enjoys no executive powers.
Now people are saying he was insulted. I beg to differ, he was more than insulted, he was made a target and misrepresented in a "soft blow" "hatchet job." This is a proven method of look-away mobbing and his response to silent mobbing while in office was appropriate, because his person and his high office were each maligned by "sins of omission."
I will remember his courage and feeling for others, on the Winnenden shootings, on the monstrous visage of short-term profiteering, which he decried in the most unequivocal terms and his deep interest in the destiny and circumstances of many people in Germany and especially Africa.
It seems a bit oversimplified for Germany's ARD to claim that Germans "don't understand" his resignation - the ease with which a publicly-financed broadcaster feels called upon to say what Germans think and pretend to be able to gauge this, even before it has sunk in, amounts to arrogance and presumptuousness. Even when their air time is paid for by the people, ARD has overstepped professional tenets and standards.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Teamgeist or esprit de corps
Given the calamity occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, it is striking how the entire group of upstream mineral oil producing companies have not created a pool of funds to unleash an unprecedented effort to contain and alleviate the damage. OPEC should not stand by, but send 5 representatives to stand with President Obama and the governors and commit to a clean-up.
In addition they ought to finance a people-controlled/grassroots-represented containment and de-escalation team with full spending power matching 1 percent of the affected coastal region's budget and a local draft of volunteers and this amount matched by double this amount from Big Oil - the teams to be staffed, 50 percent by oil company managers who are answerable to the other 50 percent who are non-oil-company representatives from affected local communities.
Shifts could be handled like on the North Slope. 2 weeks on - 2 weeks off, with one day set aside for briefing/debriefing between team shifts.
In addition they ought to finance a people-controlled/grassroots-represented containment and de-escalation team with full spending power matching 1 percent of the affected coastal region's budget and a local draft of volunteers and this amount matched by double this amount from Big Oil - the teams to be staffed, 50 percent by oil company managers who are answerable to the other 50 percent who are non-oil-company representatives from affected local communities.
Shifts could be handled like on the North Slope. 2 weeks on - 2 weeks off, with one day set aside for briefing/debriefing between team shifts.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
"Machines don't get irony"
"The text with a gold-colored background here," explains Willer, "was already translated and edited last year, so today the customer doesn't have to pay for it anymore."
"Eine Maschine versteht keine Ironie" - taz.de: "'Was hier golden unterlegt ist', erklärt Willer, 'wurde bereits im Vorjahr übersetzt und editiert, dafür braucht mein Kunde heute nicht mehr zu bezahlen.'"
Who decides if a piece of work should be left out or included and thus billed for. It should be the service provider who decides if they feel text repetitions should be charged at a lower rate, if justified. the alternative is accepting these terms as dicatated by the customer.
"Eine Maschine versteht keine Ironie" - taz.de: "'Was hier golden unterlegt ist', erklärt Willer, 'wurde bereits im Vorjahr übersetzt und editiert, dafür braucht mein Kunde heute nicht mehr zu bezahlen.'"
Who decides if a piece of work should be left out or included and thus billed for. It should be the service provider who decides if they feel text repetitions should be charged at a lower rate, if justified. the alternative is accepting these terms as dicatated by the customer.
But when customers start pressuring you to come down in price for matches and repetitions (a match is simply a later repetition), not only does the amount you earn decrease, but a gap is created between what you do and what you are paid. If the number of repetitions saves you 25% of the work, you can bet that the agency wants a 50% discount. So you end up doing more work for the same price. The only other option is an unprofessional one: translating disconnected sentences which are not yet in the database and not spending even a half a second reading from one sentence to the next. That is an approach which is reckless and runs counter to how texts should be skillfully dealt with during translation. It can be likened to a surgeon saying she doesn't need glasses, after all that ear is on the left side of the patient's head, since she knows where it is, she commands: "Scalpel." and lops it off. Oh, I'm sorry, it was the next person's ear!! Not to worry, I have malpractice insurance for that. Translators can say: "Oh, I have liability insurance for financial loss," I'll accept those terms (ha, ha, life is fun!). A gross and insanely absurd analogy which has a pithy logical core. Do you care about your patient, do you care about your text? The texts my colleagues translate are often for heavy machinery with high voltage and potentially dangerous situations can arise from incorrect translation. Anyone who voluntarily places others at potential risk while also jeopardizing their own reputation by agreeing to "blind" fuzzy-match-only translations is taking an uncalled for risk. In some cases a proofreader makes sense, but with fuzzy matches being blindly accepted, a proofreader is then forced to use production resources to fix things you as as the translator could have done right in the first place.
It is not the marketing damage large institutions inflict upon themselves when making bad decisions about translations. This is systemic. The problems with "Fluggastkontrolle" (airline passenger "control") being rendered as "passenger control" is not the question here, though embarassing enough for Munich's Airport when they closed it down and the unchecked and very translated sounding phrase "passenger control" is shown to millions and millsion on all the German TV stations and international stations, too. No.... this issue goes deeper than that.
So, try to avoid agents who allow customers to force this on them. And end-customers, you are risking things... Discourage dialogs about repetitions and fuzzy match discounts. You decide that, not them, for your expertise is required for a successful processing/translating of the patient/text.
It is not the marketing damage large institutions inflict upon themselves when making bad decisions about translations. This is systemic. The problems with "Fluggastkontrolle" (airline passenger "control") being rendered as "passenger control" is not the question here, though embarassing enough for Munich's Airport when they closed it down and the unchecked and very translated sounding phrase "passenger control" is shown to millions and millsion on all the German TV stations and international stations, too. No.... this issue goes deeper than that.
So, try to avoid agents who allow customers to force this on them. And end-customers, you are risking things... Discourage dialogs about repetitions and fuzzy match discounts. You decide that, not them, for your expertise is required for a successful processing/translating of the patient/text.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, except for maybe in the translation industry when critical sentences in a new manual don't get paid for - the customer/agent gets the free lunch, but uses the sentence for monetary gain in a transaction--publishing the content or selling it as a manual with a system or piece of potentially dangerous equipment. What bookseller is in the business of letting the same book be purchased for the price of one because the content repeats in the second book? I won't wait for your answer... As a colleague once said to me: "This is also true for filling up your gas tank at the pump." The major oil companies don't give a discount because their goods repeat themselves.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Nice quote
Titus Engel leads Freischütz production at Kampnagel in Hamburg - November/December 2004
Wie ein Torwart, der sein Tor verlässt, stampfte Engel bei den Jägerchören über den Rasen und stachelte die bierernst schmetternden Herren des Männerchores an. Seines Jacketts entledigt, mit Hosenträgern und langen Haaren, stahl er seinen Schauspielkollegen mitunter die Show.
//
Like a goalie who leaves his goal, Titus Engel strode across the lawn for the hunters' choruses, exhorting even more heroic tones from the exuberantly singing glee club members. Free of his tails, with suspenders showing and long flowing hair, at times he managed to steal the show from his dramatic counterparts.
http://www.bode-engel.com/presse/medienberichte-zu-der-freischuetz/flensburger-tageblatt-22112004/
Wie ein Torwart, der sein Tor verlässt, stampfte Engel bei den Jägerchören über den Rasen und stachelte die bierernst schmetternden Herren des Männerchores an. Seines Jacketts entledigt, mit Hosenträgern und langen Haaren, stahl er seinen Schauspielkollegen mitunter die Show.
//
Like a goalie who leaves his goal, Titus Engel strode across the lawn for the hunters' choruses, exhorting even more heroic tones from the exuberantly singing glee club members. Free of his tails, with suspenders showing and long flowing hair, at times he managed to steal the show from his dramatic counterparts.
http://www.bode-engel.com/presse/medienberichte-zu-der-freischuetz/flensburger-tageblatt-22112004/
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