Adapting to “Normal”

Hold fast

You could call this a precursor to the much-anticipated “In Search of Blue Water: Part 2.”  I’m sure my reflections on sailing the coastal waters of Catalina/Santa Barbara Islands will be just as potent, if not more introspective.  This post is my warm-up.  The last weeks re-acclimating to the U.S., to another time zone, to “standard” food, entertainment, and everyday trials have been interestingly frustrating.  No thanks to, but not exclusively because of, the Sandman.

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Transatlantic Immigration Reforms: Guest Workers

Like many countries Germany is still trying to solidify its immigration policy. Part of the continuing debate rests in how to better integrate former guest workers who helped build up the country in the 1960s and 70s. The United States has considered a similar guest worker program, and some of the lessons learned by Germany may signal how the US goes about its immigration reforms.

(Editor’s Note: This story was written in Germany, but subsequently produced and edited in the U.S.  It is a 12-minute profile of German and U.S. immigration policy, and past, focusing on guest worker programs.  The audio provided is from Deutsche Welle Radio’s “Insight.”)

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A Guest Worker Program that Works?

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KJZZ’s Tony Ganzer has been investigating the Guest Worker program instituted by Germany in the 1960s and 70s,  in hopes of finding something the US could use in its own efforts to reform immigration policy.  Germany is still coping with the effects of its program, and as Ganzer reports, some experts say the US may not have better luck if it rolls out its own guest worker program.

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Cologne Terror Plot

(Aired on NPR Newscasts, 26Sep2008)

Police arrested a 23-year-old Somali man and a 24-year-old German citizen born in the Somali capital of Mogadishu after storming a KLM airliner bound for Amsterdam.

German police said in a published report there was no indication the two men were about to launch an attack, and the plane continued its flight to the Netherlands after an hour delay.

A police spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the authorities did not think the men planned to hijack that specific flight, but would not say whether the men were armed.  Reports in Germany say the two men were observation by police for months, and that a suicide note was found in the suspects’ apartment saying the men wanted to die for the “jihad” or “holy war.”

For NPR News, I’m Tony Ganzer in Bonn, Germany.

Leipzig, Germany

The Guest Worker Identity Crisis

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As debates in the US on immigration reform and a potential guest worker program have stalled, KJZZ’s Tony Ganzer is looking at Germany’s guest worker past for a potential look at the United States’ future, including what we may here see in Arizona.  In the 1960s and 70s large numbers of Turkish immigrants helped rebuild Germany in an “Economic Miracle” but nearly half a century later, the country and some of its immigrants and their children are having a hard time getting along.

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A Wild West-Inspired Germany

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Arizona...the slideshow

Arizona’s sights and cities attract a broad range of people each year, in large numbers.  The National Park Service estimates the Grand Canyon alone welcomes almost 5 million visitors annually.   Some of these people are Europeans, drawn to the Wild West image of America.  KJZZ’s Tony Ganzer found a club of Arizona fans in Dresden, Germany where the Old West is spurring a new kind of thinking.

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