Larko links to the website of Dr. Dragan Dabic, still online as I write:

Dr. Dragan “David” Dabic was born some six decades ago in a small Serbian village of Kovaci, near Kraljevo. As a young boy he liked to explore nearby forests and mountains, spending a lot of time on Kopaonik mountain where he tended to pick the omnipresent, natural and potent medicinal herbs that grew at those green pastures. As a young man he moved to Belgrade, and then on to Moscow where he graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree (spec. in Psychiatry) at the Moscow State University (Lomonosov). After Russia, Dr. Dabic travelled around India and Japan, after which he settled in China where he specialized in alternative medicine, with a special emphasis on the mind-body control, meditation, Yoga, spiritual cleansing, as well as Chinese herbs. In mid-1990s Dr. Dabic returned back to mother Serbia for good, and ever since then emerged as one of the most prominent experts in the field of alternative medicine, bioenergy, and macrobiotic diet in the whole of the Balkans, and is frequent contributor to the regional alternative health magazines, and guest expert with numerous TV appearances and on many public forums, seminars and symposiums (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Pancevo, Sombor, Smederevo, Kikinda…) dedicated to these issues and topics.

Dr. Dragan Dabic currently resides on Yury Gagarin street in New Belgrade, but for public forum invitations, television appearances or private consultations he can be reached directly at the following contact:

healingwounds @ dragandabic . com

At least it isn’t machine translation. Why am I always so suspicious of alternative medicine? I like ‘he tended to pick the omnipresent…herbs’.

Another website is given in one of the links in the Law and Magic blog (of which more anon).

LATER NOTE: apparently the website is fake – at all events, it went online after 22 July 2008. See BILDblog. Actually, for a fake website it’s very nicely done, not too exaggerated.

This is only of interest to non-native speakers of German like me.

I encountered the word sächlich in a sense I had never met before. Sachlich usually means objective, and sächlich means neuter, as in masculine/feminine/neuter.

This was in section 32 (6) sentence 1 of the Einkommensteuergesetz (Income Tax Act):

Bei der Veranlagung zur Einkommensteuer wird für jedes zu berücksichtigende Kind des Steuerpflichtigen ein Freibetrag von 1.824 Euro für das sächliche Existenzminimum des Kindes (Kinderfreibetrag) sowie ein Freibetrag von 1.080 Euro für den Betreuungs- und Erziehungs- oder Ausbildungsbedarf des Kindes vom Einkommen abgezogen.

I realize that Existenzminimum (subsistence level) is neuter, but that’s obviously not what it means. I couldn’t find it in the multi-volume Duden dictionary (which tends to exclude specialist terminology). The Deutsches Rechtswörterbuch (which I had forgotten to add to my sidebar) hasn’t reached S yet. But I do have a link to the Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (DWDS), and there it was:

sächlich /Adj./
1. Gramm. ein s. Substantiv, ein Substantiv mit s. Geschlecht (ein mit dem Artikel ‘das’ verbundenes Substantiv); der s. Artikel (der Artikel ‘das’); dieses Nomen ist s., wird s. gebraucht
2. fachspr. einen materiellen Gegenstand betreffend: die personellen und s. Verwaltungskosten; die s. Voraussetzungen des naturwissenschaftlichen Schulunterrichts sind verbessert worden; Die Kosten der sächlichen Unterhaltung [der Arbeitsbibliotheken] und der personellen Kräfte tragen die Räte der Kreise Gesetzblatt DDR 1956
dazu haupt-, neben-, tat-, ursächlich

Fantastic! I went with ‘material’.

Got Medieval (A[n intermittently updated] tonic for the slipshod use of medieval European history in the media and pop culture) is intrigued by phallic initials in a Justinian codex.

Here is the I of Imperator:

More salacious images on the website, which states:

This one goes out to all the law students, lawyers, paralegals, and other assorted legal professionals who read this blog. I know that you come here for diversion because the reading you’re forced to do for work and school is ungodly amounts of boring. You should, however, consider yourselves lucky. Medieval law books are just as eyeball-numbingly tedious, and just think, many medieval law students had to copy their textbooks out by hand.

Oh, come on – the law students in the German Democratic Republic had to do their copies by hand too, and that wasn’t so long ago.

Thanks to Trevor.

In den USA gibt es be-/vereidigte Polizeihunde. Entweder schwört der Hundeführer für den Hund, oder in manchen Staaten kann der Hund selber den Eid durch Bellen leisten.

Slate reports that sworn police dogs exist in the USA. It investigated the procedure of swearing (with many links).

Canine swearing-in ceremonies, on the other hand, tend to be public events celebrating the role of police dogs. In some cases, the police chief administers the human oath of office to the dog, and the handler affirms on the dog’s behalf. In rare instances, the dog is trained to bark in affirmation of the oath. When the ceremony is complete, the dog is presented with a badge to wear on its collar.

I notice some of the articles linked refer to ‘affirming’, so I suppose no Bible or other religious tome is used.

Via Roger Shuy at Language Log

Yesterday, John Bolch of Family Lore linked to Gary Dean’s divorce site. There, under an American graphic, Gary reports the full details of his divorce settlement. (See also the Times report, with photos of the couple).

Usually, such details are kept secret, but apparently there was a lot of gossip in the Blackpool and Preston area about how mean Gary had been.

On the 5th July 2007 in the Preston High Court of Justice before The Honourable Mrs Justice Baron DBE Helen and I agreed a settlement and issues between us were resolved.

We reached an agreement which the Court approved, and the Judge commented that she considered to be a fair and reasonable settlement.

The Court was not asked to assess what I would have to pay.

I Gary Dean (The Respondent) to pay and/or give to the Applicant (Helen Louise Dean):

1. A CASH LUMP SUM of £3,719,000.00 (three million seven hundred & nineteen thousand pounds)

2. Plus £15,000.00 per child per annum until the age of 17 years or the completion of full time education.

3. Plus all private school fees

4. Plus all jewellery, diamonds and watches, Mercedes E500, Audi Convertible 3.0.

5. Plus cherished number plates 7HD and 10HD.

I have never complained that the settlement was unfair.

There is no reason to doubt the information on the website. What we don’t know is how much the total marital property was.

I nearly blogged this, because it’s unusual to see. Now I see via Handakte WebLAWg (curiously referring to ‘Scheidungspapiere’) that Bild has taken up the story. In fact, newspapers seem increasingly to feed off the web (this story appeared in the Times too).

In England, pre-nuptial contracts (Eheverträge) aren’t (yet) recognized. The court can decide how to split a couple’s property. In this case, the parties came to an agreement, which the court accepted. The Times article suggests that the fact that, after the divorce, Helen Dean wanted a small house in a gated community in Blackpool, whereas Gary Dean wanted a huge house with lake, tennis court and swimming pool, started the locals talking about how small her divorce settlement must have been.

In Bild, the whole affair becomes a Rosenkrieg (the Wars of the Roses have a different meaning in German).

Sie heißen Gary (47) und Helen Louise Dean, haben vier Kinder und führen einen Rosenkrieg, den nun die Öffentlichkeit miterleben darf…

This is pure invention, except insofar as every divorce is a Rosenkrieg for Bild. It also writes

Er sei von einigen Leuten als Bösewicht hingestellt worden, der seine Frau und Kinder fast mittellos zurückgelassen habe und sich mit Millionen davongemacht habe, betonte der Brite. „Das ist einfach nicht wahr.“ Mal sehen, ob nun die entlarvte Ex-Frau in Erklärungsnöte kommt…

But there’s no suggestion in the English reports that the rumours came from the ex-wife – on the contrary, there’s no suggestion of any bitterness between the spouses. In other details, Preston has become ‘ein beschaulicher Ort’ and the annual maintenance for each child has been incorrectly converted (should be almost 19,000 euros).

A new Rundbrief (circular) of the Stadtheimatpfleger Dr. Alexander Mayer is available. Click on Rundbriefe and select Rundbrief Nr. 35.

This has a good diagram of the proposed redevelopment in the centre of Furth, and a link to an excellent aerial view.