Space Cowboy

  Not yet.  LH say they are on a 6 week delay for refunds.

Buying a ticket is easy - no hassles.  A lovely lady friend of mine planned to visit me this month.  LH sold her a ticket without any fuss - then canceled the flights.

  How would that be possible?  EU borders remain closed to US citizens who are not resident in the EU.

  That‘s the great thing about the US two-party system - every election, from municipal dogcatcher to the president, we have a choice between two imbeciles.

    Trump retweets video of supporter shouting 'white power'   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53212685

  Birds are (almost exclusively) diurnal.    

    Yeah, I am not an asylum seeker.  I am a specialist, and there are very few people in the world with my skillset.  Nevertheless, it hasn't been easy - I have experienced casual discrimination due to the fact that I am a foreigner.  I was warned by my senior leadership in the US that the Germans were very nationalistic in hiring, and my leadership was right.  I got turned down for jobs because, "No way will we hire a non-German," and "All Americans are superficial scum."j

  But that is exactly what Germany did, when it suspended the Dublin agreement.

  No, I do not.

  And you are wrong.  Read BAMF’s 411-93605/Syria/2015 document.  Then watch Frau Merkel‘s 31.08.2015 press conference.

  Maybe.   But, no sarcasm - I suspect German society has indeed contributed.  I came here just after the peak of the refugee wave, and ended up in language/integration classes filled mostly with refugees, with a scattering of economic migrants, and a very few people from stable, developed countries.  In the classroom we were all equals, but outside of the classroom?  No.   The thing that struck me the most was the plight of the refugees.  Yes, they were desperate, and Germany accepted them with open arms (they thought), but the reality was quite a bit different than they imagined.  Just as examples:  in one of my classes there was a degreed civil engineer, and a degreed bank manager, both from Syria.  They were both employed, and compared to some of the other refugees, they had aspirational jobs - the engineer worked as a cook in a local restaurant, and the bank manager worked in a grocery store as a shelf stocker.  They each found, to their dismay, that everything they had ever done prior to coming to Germany was useless.  Degrees?  Not recognized.  Skills?  Not proven to German satisfaction.  Experience?  Doesn't count in Germany if you don't have a recognized degree or certificate.   There were quite a few stories like this.  I found that most of the refugees were hoping to learn German well enough to get a job with Amazon or DHL, or the like, working in a warehouse or delivering packages.  This was regardless of their backgrounds and education - it was the best they could expect.  I have read self-congratulatory stories in German news media about the "success" of some refugees reaching the exalted title of Mail Sorter, and how it proves the greatness of Germany for accepting the refugees and giving them such amazing chances.  It was appalling to see.   For my fellow students who struggled to learn German, regardless of any other (former) qualifications, working in the fields or other low-pay labor was the best they could expect.   My impression is that the real reason Germany invited the refugees here was precisely to fill these kinds of jobs.  Germans want cushy desk jobs, or high-paying skilled labor jobs.  The descendants of the original "guest workers," who were invited here to do the menial labor, have integrated to the point where they don't want to do the menial work either.   I can only imagine how I'd feel if I came here to escape war and atrocities in my home country, only to find that the real reason I was invited was so I could do the dirty work that the locals don't want to do, and then have them look down upon me for it.  Maybe I'd bust out some windows too. 

  Yep.  Lots of it (I was acquainted with Jobs and Woz „back in the day“).

Thanks for the recommendation, @fraufruit.  I will read it.

I too have enjoyed the MLK exhibit in ATL.  I have read all of his published writings and letters, and studied his speeches.  He was truly brilliant.   As I mentioned previously in this thread, I come from a long line of unabashed racists.  My father was quite bigoted. He was born in North Carolina, and went to a segregated High School in downtown Washington, D.C.  He got his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland.  All the students in his class were white.   He then was commissioned in the US Military, during the time when officers were almost exclusively white, and blacks were relegated to being cooks, orderlies, and mess attendants.   He used to make fun of the obsequiousness that blacks were forced to display to white people during the Jim Crow era.  When the Civil Rights Act was passed, he became fearful of black people.   When we first moved to Germany in 1969, he was absolutely appalled that the main thoroughfare through the Ami Siedlung in Bonn was named, „Martin-Luther-King Allee.“  He hated the West Germans for allowing that name change.   Fortunately for me and my brothers, my mother didn’t have a bigoted bone in her body, despite the fact that her father was an active member of the KKK.  We learned our life-lessons from her, rather than from our father.  The chain can be broken!   As a young adult I was estranged from my father for many years, in part because of his attitudes toward POC.  We eventually reconciled, but there were certain subjects that we did not discuss.   He died in May, before the George Floyd incident.  I am actually glad, because it would have contributed to reopening the rift in our family. Anybody who says that racism isn’t still rampant in US society needs to talk to me.  

It‘s not forgetting - it’s cherry-picking at its most base and dishonest level.   If you pick a single event or situation, or choose a single word out of multiple words, and ignore everything that came  before and after, you can „prove“ anything you want.