21st August this year marked 40 years since the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. One of the grandsons was recently interviewed by Rappler and it is well worth watching, especially when he refers to his Lola (Cory Aquino) and Tito Noynoy who was the county’s President f2010-2016. He is working on collating the family archive as part of the Aquino Center and Museum.

Read the Global Slavery Index for 2023 from [Walk Free] (https://www.walkfree.org/) and … I wanna say cry, but that won’t help anyone.

• 50 million people kept as slaves
• US$468 billion worth of G20 imports are goods at risk of being sourced from modern slavery

Great news from the Philippines today with the acquittal of Maria Ressa after more than four years of battling tax evasion charges brought by Duterte.

Counting out the gold and silver to pay for the kid‘s iced chocolate. She promised me it’ll be the last one of the summer. Not that I would deny her the pleasure and joy of more.

Here at 49.5 degrees north and 11 degrees east, we’ve just had that sudden transition from the hot and humid days of summer, to the beautiful sunny days of September. It’s still very warm, but the shadows are now longer and deeper and cooler, and the sky now a deep and inviting blue. And of course the evenings are cooler now and sleep comes easier and deeper. And then there’s the sunsets that bathe the apartment in all the various tones of red.

Life sure is not as much fun now that my oldest daughter has left for America. Just me and the youngest at home now. We’re sort of used to it after the previous two years. But the poor kid has to listen to me recounting all I’ve learnt about whatever topic I’m currently obsessed with. She stores it all up to laugh about with her big sister on their video calls.

Does anyone else find the obsession with personal knowledge management and the idea of second brains counterproductive? And then there’s Substack and what I call the Ezra-Klein-Effectwhere you’re meant to be across all the current arguments and trends in the modern western world. After collection and curation, who the heck has time for gaining a deeper understanding of all these discrete points of knowledge?

The Vietnamese snack Bánh tráng nưỡng is popping up on social media a lot, so I gave them a try this evening. But forgot to take a photo. So an emoji will have to do. 🍳🇻🇳

And there she is. On her way to Frankfurt and then on to America. The connection between her and us being stretched far further than ever before.

An open letter to the United States of America Please be kind to my oldest daughter for the next four years. She’s only just turned 18. And you will be her third continent and fourth country in her very eventful life.🇦🇺🇩🇪🇧🇦🇺🇸

The oldest turned 18 two days ago. And on Sunday she leaves for college in America. She completed her IB a few months ago at one of the UWC colleges, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these end-of-summer partings.

facultative: Do any institutions of tertiary education in the English-speaking world still use this term to describe a subject which is optional, discretionary, or elective? Because German universities do. And that’s why I couldn’t find my classroom or my students at 9 am this morning.

I always seek out the green spaces when in another city. The Jewish Museum, Berlin

Umberto Eco is probably to blame for the cynicism I feel when I visit the major commercial tourist sights in a city such as Berlin. I can’t help but think about his book Faith in Fakes / Travels in Hyperreality. Or maybe it’s caused by the smell of French fries and hotdogs along with the gaudy sight of all those souvenirs which lie thickly over these places much like a medieval miasma.

Vist Berlin

And of course the Brandenburger Tor. I remember my first visit here in early 1997 in the gloom of a winter’s afternoon. Without the buildings that now form a ring around Pariser Platz (and which replicate the original form of the square), it was as if the Brandenburger Tor were looking out over the vast expanse of Central European history. A silent memorial and warning to all that had come before.

Much more interesting than the Fernsehturm (TV tower) is das Rote Rathaus—maybe because it’s significance is something I’ve only learned to appreciate the longer I’ve lived in Germany. Or maybe because when first learning German, I used it as a mental hook to remember the gender and declension of the noun Haus, but for some reason I could never remember the gender for Turm.

Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Why do all roads for tourists in Berlin lead here?

Got Back from Berlin late Friday night

Just a short trip with the kids. It was hot and humid, and over-crowded in all the usual places. Back home in Nuremberg it’s even hotter and also crowded in all the usual places.

Thanks for making me feel at home on my very first day. I’ve got a long morning ahead of me with der Deutsche Bahn so if the WiFi is working, I‘ll keep on posting. 🚄🚆

My first day on micro.blog. And my first venture into building a public profile. It feels good to be here. Although I’m still hanging around the edges, peaking around the doorframe, not quite sure if it’s safe enough to entirely venture out. Worried about what I look like and if I’m wearing the right clothes. But bedazzled by the cool kids in the middle of the room, swigging on their illicit cans of beer. My heart beating furiously and anxiety in my stomach. Wanting to let go and cut loose but frightened to reveal the dark secrets of my inner life. 👋🤭

When it’s hot and humid here in Europe, my drink of choice during the day is an affogato, or for the pedantic amongst us, affogato al caffè. This one is a variation on the traditional form, with the ice cream bobbing in a caffè lungo.☕️

Cooked a simple version of Pancit Canton for dinner last night. Pancit is one of the national dishes of the Philippines, but with so many variations that it’s worthy of its own taxonomic system à la Carl Linnaeus. 🇵🇭🍜 panlasangpinoy.com/30-ways-t…