Dr Seán Ketchem

While half my school faculty decamped to Portugal (or so it seemed from the Lehrerzimmer chatter) for the fall break, I am happy to spend it at home watching the leaves turn out my living room window, and doing Skelly Movie Nights. It will be intense enough again for the home stretch through Xmas.

(I finally watched the Neil Simon whodunit spoof, "Murder by Death." Plenty of funny moments (with Truman Capote as the mysterious host!). Yes, Peter Sellers in yellow face as the "Charlie Chan" detective was cringe, but he intended it to be--an over-the-top parody of how Asians had been portrayed.)

The Left party in Berlin has floated the idea of non-citizens having the vote in city elections. At the moment non-German EU citizens resident in Berlin can vote in communal elections, but not state and federal ones. The German citizenship requirement is in both the federal and state constitution.

Full article here. The proposal would require amending Article 38 of the Berlin state constitution, which specifically refers to German citizens being the city electorate at the state level. www.spiegel.de/politik/deut...

"An election that would normally be a cakewalk for the GOP has divided the party. It has become a test of whether views once considered extreme are now acceptable to the state’s voters. “Are people so loyal to the Republican Party that they’ll support a known racist?” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/28/u...

A great thread that addresses a lot of the questions bouncing around in my head (why is the Israeli Knesset so small? Why aren't there any constituencies below the national level? etc). Israel has long since outgrown the provisional legislature of 1949--120 seats for 10 million people is ridiculous.

I can't make heads or tails of these Israeli exit polls, other than that we are reminded they can be way off. But compared to 2021, it would be a loss of 10 seats for Likud (32 in 2021, 22 in 2026) which would seem like a defeat to me. And maybe having to work with the Arab parties is a good thing.

If each bloc is right around 50 and the Arab parties have the other 20 (the Knesset is fixed for symbolic reasons at 120 seats), there seems no way around the impasse other than either working with the Arab parties or having a minority government (or new elections, the 2021 treadmill again).

"If the claims are accurate, Kushner’s political and financial relationship with the UAE constitutes what must surely be the worst case of U.S. foreign policy being conducted outside the law since the Iran-contra scandal during the Reagan administration in the 1980s." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/b...

Taxis registered in Berlin will no longer be allowed to do pickups at the airport next year (drop-offs, yes). Only taxis registered in the same district at the airport can wait in the taxi stand. The opening of the Dresden Railway last December had a big impact here--it is only 20m to Hauptbahnhof.

Not always a fan of Ezra but he certainly lays down the stakes for Israel in the election. The country cannot survive as an apartheid pariah state whose entire young professional class has fled, leaving behind an ultra-religious sect who are a sort of genocidal Amish. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/o...

My favorite scenes with Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov, (2245-2335) were in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when naturally people flip out on discovering a guy with a thick Russian accent poking around a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine base in Oakland, California. RIP. variety.com/2026/film/ne...

And not to take another slice at this topic (so to speak) but these national chains did to local family-owned restaurants exactly what Wal-Mart did to small-town main streets--took the money out of the community and handed it over a distant corporate office or equity firm. That isn't pro small town.

Wonderful news to wake up to today. A corrupt family's bid to regain presidential power fails in Brazil (unlike in the U.S.), and a Putinist Balkan strongman in the Orbán mold is toppled in Serbia, in a big loss for Russia. Your turn, America and Israel. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/w...

The clocks have changed and it's dark at 5:30pm, so may as well settle in for Skelly Movie Night. I read it had a troubled production, but the finished product is a perfectly enjoyable Ray Bradbury adaptation (with Jonathan Pryce as the sinister Mr. Dark! And Pam Grier as the seductive sorceress!).

Update: yesterday I got a ten-page "Witness Declaration Form" in the mail from the district housing board (Wohnungsamt). It is a bunch of questions about how I came to rent the apartment, what my conversations had been with the property firm, etc (for fraud cases, they have to prove knowing intent).

A reminder of just how close 2024 was--Harris got blindsided just 100 days to go before Election Day, and she very nearly pulled it out. Imagine if Biden had withdrawn his reelection bid in 2023 and given his party a true ramp to build a national campaign.

Source: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

A reminder of just how close 2024 was--Harris got blindsided just 100 days to go before Election Day, and she very nearly pulled it out. Imagine if Biden had withdrawn his reelection bid in 2023 and given his party a true ramp to build a national campaign.

Winter time is here