As tornadoes rock the US, Germany is drowning

Climate change is happening everywhere, not just in the U.S. This season, Germany is learning that it is not immune. After the "darkest winter in decades", the rain arrived.

April showers have only been followed by more showers in May, when 178 percent more rain fell than the year before, according to estimates of Germany's National Meteorological Service (DWD). What's worse, the DWD says that -- except for in a lucky few parts of northwestern Germany -- Mother Nature has no plans to turn off the spigots anytime soon.

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Similar flooding has been seen in many other German locations, where waters are filling basements, trapping inhabitants, closing small and major roads, and felling trees. "The weakened earth can no longer hold tree roots," said one police spokesman, adding that the rains have caused several landslides that blocked streets.

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In fact, the DWD says that, from Germany's northern coastlines to the Alps, the earth is wetter than it has been in 50 years. This broad swath of muddy soil is causing major problems for the agricultural industry, the DWD reports, making it impossible to drive on 40 percent of fields, use machinery or spray against pests, diseases, molds or weeds.

Vegetable growers are getting the worst of it. In some fields of Lower Saxony, the water almost completely hides the raised rows of dirt in which the country's beloved asparagus is grown. The waters could also severely damage the upcoming harvest of early potatoes. "Even if they haven't already rotted in the ground, now you can't harvest them," said a DWD spokesman.

Imagine what's that like for these farmers. They're experiencing the opposite of what farmers in the dryest sections of the United States are seeing. And yet the world still can't unite to do something about climate change. When governments finally wake up, it will be far too late. Meanwhile, with every day that passes, the weather will become more extreme.

But no worries. Just go shopping and forget all about it! Sorry for interrupting your beautiful day.

I've awakened in an alternate universe

That must be the answer, because I saw this today:

BERLIN (AP) — German bishops have agreed that Roman Catholic-run hospitals should be allowed to prescribe the morning-after pill to rape victims to prevent conception.

A Roman Catholic hospital doing the right thing?  Surely this can't be! But wait, there's more.

The German Bishops Conference issued the ruling at a regular meeting Thursday in the western city of Trier. But it said Catholic hospitals still can't prescribe drugs that would lead to the death of an embryo.

Phew. Same universe. For a moment, I was really worried. After all, in a parallel universe I might not have an iPad.

The stories write themselves

Germany's education minister has been stripped of her doctorate following an investigation into allegations that she plagiarized parts of her thesis, which explored the formation of conscience.

I wonder if the woman experienced an Irony Alert at any point in this process.

Catholic hospitals fail German public

Der Spiegel minces no words when addressing the failures of Roman Catholic health facilities in Germany.

Wanting nothing to do with a possible early termination of a pregnancy, doctors working for the Cellitines turned away a woman who was seeking help shortly before Christmas, despite the strong suspicion that she had been raped.

Last week, the order publicly downplayed the case when it made national news, calling it "very regrettable" and "a misunderstanding."

Turning away rape victims can hardly be called a misunderstanding.

This failure to meet the needs of female patients outrages Germans, and rightly so. How can this church, of all churches, pretend that it is ethical?

Catholic facilities are increasingly sealing themselves off, often behaving as if they were part of a state within a state; a cosmos subject to its own rules, which are monitored by the pope and his bishops; and a world in which federal, state and local governments have little say.

Every year, Catholic dioceses receive billions in funds from obligatory taxes paid by church members. But when it comes to scandals, such as when sexual abuse is systematically covered up and remains uninvestigated for years, citizens have little influence and are left to experience how the church energetically defends its special rights.

The internet is shining a light on the church's evil doings. I don't see how Catholicism can survive the current, heightened level of scrutiny. It's a church without ethics, without morals. This doesn't escape people's notice.

More on the German Catholic church dust-up

I posted recently about the collapse of an independent investigation into child sex abuse in Germany's Roman Catholic church. Although the church promised transparency to investigators, it tried to block their efforts and censor the final report. As a result, the investigation was called off.

There's an article about this at SpiegelOnline. What I found interesting were the various opinions espoused by media. It didn't seem to matter whether the media outlet was liberal or conservative. They all rued the breakdown of the investigation and many said the Roman Catholic church remains unwilling to take a candid look at the pedophilia scandal.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Problems with a system can only rarely be recognized and remedied from the inside. And the sexual violence in the Catholic Church also has intrinsic systemic causes. It is driven by a perception that an institution, pure on its own, has been tainted by perpetrators and only has to be purified again. That it is fueled by the loneliness and overwork of many priests. The problem will remain unresolved as long as the overriding question is: 'How are we perceived?'"

"This view from the outside cannot purify the church. On the contrary, it will only strengthen the awareness of its own problems. But only when the church recognizes these problems will it turn from its own reflection to focusing on the victims, who have been largely ignored in this whole fight. And then to the people, in order to make the church credible again for their sake."

Sounds accurate to me. And that's not the left-most opinion. It's time for the church to face its ills -- and change. It will still be an organization based on utter nonsense, but perhaps fewer priests will rape kids.

Investigate this, not that

So the Roman Catholic church in Germany asked an outside expert to "analyze data on abuse from German dioceses as far back as 1945". Didn't work out so well.

Pfeiffer [the investigator] said that researchers and church worked well together for the first few months, but then resistance emerged, starting with a call from the Munich archdiocese for the researchers "to bow to church requests for stronger controls" on their work.

A group representing German dioceses then called for the researchers' work to be submitted for pre-publication approval, Pfeiffer told ZDF television, a demand that he said was unacceptable.

The good old Catholic Church -- always seeking truth and justice, with nary a concern for its own self-interest. It must be the Pope's leadership. Wattaguy!

Slice of (deer) life

So a deer was caught out on the ice in Germany, and couldn't get back to land. Unfortunately, the ice wasn't strong enough to hold the men who wanted to save the deer. However, someone had a bright idea. From Spiegel:

That's when the deer's guardian angel appeared in the form of a passing police helicopter that happened to be in the area. "Its pilot had been listening to the police frequency and heard what was going on," the spokesman said. "He offered to help and had the idea of tilting the helicopter to create a strong downdraft. That literally blew the deer off the lake."

Once the animal had hit the shore, it got up and skipped off into the forest, apparently unhurt, the spokesman said.

The case may have set a precedent. "Every time a deer's in trouble somewhere, we're going to have to call in a helicopter now," said one policeman. 

Kinda fun. I hope this becomes a trend. Maybe they can blow kids off the ice, too.

Blasphemy as art

Der Spiegel, which I've taken to reading lately, has an interesting article about a drawing used as an advertisement for a show in the city's caricature museum. Christians are not pleased by the imagery. I have to agree it's a bit over the top, but it's also funny. I'm sure Germany's version of Bill Donohue is having a great time denouncing it.

Der Spiegel has an appealing cosmopolitan flair. I enjoy it. And they have no silly compunctions about nudity. There was a delightful photo of nude Spanish firemen there the other day. (They were protesting in the nude.) You never see anything like that in our prudish country. But to Germans (and most Europeans) nudity isn't a big deal. I've heard they think Americans are childish about sexual matters. Sounds right to me.