The CDU in Baden-Wuerttemberg is conducting negotiations with the Greens in that state to decide if the two parties should form a coalition government. If they do, it will be the first “black-green” coalition at the state level, and another sign of fluidity in Germany’s post-reunification party politics.
Update: Maybe next time. The CDU and FDP [...]

European Tribune - How not to govern
But what is certain is that these decisions make a mockery of our institutions. It undermines the rule of law (”ignore the laws we pass”), it shows that thos government is such a lameduck that legitimacy for negotiations must come from the outside (the UMPparty), it turns the prime [...]

Once upon a time, before it became the Paris edition of the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune published its late sports editor Dick Roraback’s ode to baseball’s opening day each year.
Under the fold, “The Crack of the Bat.”
(The fifth stanza is current again, after reflecting a bygone age for more than three decades. [...]

A Depression Switch? - New York Times

Finally, a satisfying biography of Franz Kafka
Robert Alter reviews ‘Kafka: The Decisive Years’ by Reiner Stach.