Die Bombe tickt.

Hey gang. So on Wednesday, there was a pretty large demonstration in Tübingen. If you read German, you can read about it here. If you don't, you're stuck with my summary. So when I say pretty large, I mean the largest education protest that Tübingen has seen since 1976. The 4,000 (the largest of all the Baden-Württemberg protests, and roughly 1/7 of the 28,500 students in Tübingen) assembled at the Geschwister-Scholl-Platz in front of the Neue Aula. They had gathered (in conjunction with quite a few professors and high-ranking university officials) in order to protest a very large 10% cut to the university budget. They had tried to turn the fountains red to symbolize the university bleeding out, but mostly they just looked pink (as you can see in the picture), but the protest was incredible. There was simply no way to tell how many people there were because the crowd seemed to go on as far as the eye could see. It started with speeches and then became a march around the city, going from the Neue Aula through the streets to the Marktplatz (a fact that I am sure irritated the bus drivers) and then ended up at the Kupferbau, where students have been camping out for 3 weeks protesting these cuts. I cut my time in the protest short (I only made it to the Marktplatz), because I had to go to work. 


Despite that the entire experience was pretty amazing. It's incredible to see so many students out protesting university and education budget cuts, something that takes little notice in the US outside of an angry media cycle or two. One of my friends, a Republican from Georgetown, claimed that he "found it hard to sympathize when I am paying $60,000 a year for school." But to me, that seems like a perfectly good reason to participate in the protest. No, I am not German, and no, I do not have a government-funded education. But I would never wish the obscenely high American education costs on any country or anyone else. Just because our government has long stopped funding education (and, really our future) doesn't mean that I shouldn't help try and save someone else's. 

So that's my education rant. In any case, it is something to think about, especially considering where our national priorities lie and maybe reassessing those priorities. Anyways, that's what I have got for today. Später, dudes.