Freiburg Frank ”Open your heart to everyone”

I'm an Apple Computer user - MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone, AppleTV, iCloud, iEverything and that's just the way things shook out over the years. My first computer was an AppleII and I spent my adolescence coding on green screen terminal hooked up to mainframes creating rudimentary programs in BASIC and COBOL but by the mid 80's I'd moved to the Amiga PC which I loved - unfortunately the Amiga didn't succeed. So back to Apple, then to IBM ThinkPad with a Psion hand held and Nokia smart phone, then to Dell laptop and Apple iPhone and once I had the iPhone I figured I might as well standardize on Apple which I did and that's how I found myself in the Apple walled garden of existence. I'm not a groupie, don't bleed Cupertino silver and white, don't watch the Mac World streaming videos of product announcements - I just want a simple computer that I can explain to my wife and children - all of them have Apple products too so we're talking 6 iPhones, 5 laptops, 3 or 4 iTunes accounts, 5 iPads, Apple TV - countless Apps downloaded, Apple Care accounts. It adds up and the company should love me and people like me who have spent something like $100K on their technology over the past 30 years. But they don't...

The Modern Prometheus did not create a sympathetic creature when he stitched together random body parts and reanimated the whole into a soulless wretch that terrorized its maker and hounded the hapless Dr. Victor Frankenstein all over Europe - all the way to the North Pole where Santa Clause lives. The idea that this monster can walk into a festive hamlet, screw light bulbs into his neck and start singing a secular carol without getting clubbed, pitchforked and set aflame by the German Volk surrounding him is ludicrous - or, at least, it used to be ludicrous in the Germany of old.

"But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.
"Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings. Soon after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of the dress which I had taken from your laboratory. At first I had neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in which they were written, I began to study them with diligence. It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation. You minutely described in these papers every step you took in the progress of your work; this history was mingled with accounts of domestic occurrences. You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read. 'Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.'
"These were the reflections of my hours of despondency and solitude; but when I contemplated the virtues of the cottagers, their amiable and benevolent dispositions, I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues they would compassionate me and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship? I resolved, at least, not to despair, but in every way to fit myself for an interview with them which would decide my fate. I postponed this attempt for some months longer, for the importance attached to its success inspired me with a dread lest I should fail. Besides, I found that my understanding improved so much with every day's experience that I was unwilling to commence this undertaking until a few more months should have added to my sagacity.

And so the monster did, at long last approach "the cottagers" and, being cleaver, befriended the blind old man who could not discern the deformity confronting him. Once the other family members entered the cottage and saw the demon conversing with their father they attacked and drove the monster from the house and then abandoned the house completely. Once the family had left for good the creature burned the cottage to the ground and moved on to the next thing which turned out to be senseless murder of its creators family - how prescient is this tale of horror?

”Open your heart to everyone.”

Some folks love the Apple ‘Frankenstein’ Christmas Ad and think it has "a closing message that’s perhaps more important now than ever." And even though these illiterate buffoons find it "adorable and even a little sentimental" because it shows "what happens when we embrace one another regardless of differences" they should remember that there is a stark reality that can't be ignored no matter how many feel good advertisements you watch this holiday season.

“This crime will only confirm the fears that a lot of people in Germany have that they’re not safe anymore in their own country,” said Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at Cologne University. “All the elements of fear are on hand: once again, it was violence against a woman; once again, it was a crime by a refugee; and once again, the country’s most important news show didn’t report it. It only seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of some that the mainstream media don’t want to report disagreeable kinds of stories about refugees.”

open hearted

Sweet Maria Ladenburger opened her heart to everyone and even worked at the local refugee camp in Freiburg but her open hearted efforts left her raped and drowned in a ditch -  "we can’t stop crying!" A nations tears are washed down the River Dreisam and a dry eyed public turns back to the video screen to be soothed to sleep by subversive corporate advertising and its layers of incongruous propaganda. But perhaps there is some life - I mean real life - left in the German villagers yet because their Stasi Queen just announced her plan to ban the burqa on the grounds that walking around, incognito as it were, with a blanked covering ones personage from head to toe “is not appropriate here. It does not belong to us." What are you hiding under that burqa? Some kind of deformed monster or something? Yes, even Angela Merkel can see a deformed creature when it walks into the town square and now that burqa loving Barack is no longer calling the shots and telling her what to do (21 US military bases in country do carry a lot of clout) she's going to do what the German people demand and send the monsters back where they came from.