So yesterday I’m scrolling through the New York Times, and then up pops this big ad:

If I was writing copy for that ad, the statue would be pointing at the reader and the bold bright headline would thunder “BERLIN WANTS YOU!”

But that message still got through, especially if one clicked a link to more pages, vividly extolling  not only Brain City’s intellectual heft and (pardon my foul language) “diversity”, but also all the ways the German government was prepared to smooth the way to residency, work permits and cultural adjustments for brainy persons at loose ends or seeking a “career reboot,” especially after some hiccup or mishap in their previous company or, um, previous country.

Berlin, eh?? I scrolled through the stirring pages . . . .

Hmm. If I was younger, I mused… or if I was a scientist  . . . After all I have some German ancestry, though I know no details . . . And there have been some bothersome upheavals hereabouts of late — I believe the Germans even have a term for it — kulturkampf — which can fairly be translated as culture wars.

So I was intrigued; at least I was until I looked past the ad and asked other questions about the city.   Hmmm: a high percentage of women scholars and researchers? Good. But especially given my age, what about its weather?

Hmmm. winters, colder than here in central Carolina. Not so good. And summers, recently getting noticeably hotter — yeah, welcome to the club. But a caveat, with points to them for full disclosure: A/C, it seems, is not yet really a thing for the sturdy Berliners.

Well, different strokes, and all that; but I’m pretty well settled in the they’ll-get-my-HVAC-when-they-pry-it-from-my-cool-dead-fingers faction.

And so much for Berlin, though it was a refreshing armchair daydream.

At least it was until this morning’s scrolling, when I got to the local, shriveled but surviving daily rag, the News and Observer. There I was stopped by another startling bold headline:

EDUCATION Duke to start layoffs in August after
nearly 600 employees take voluntary buyouts

Nearly 600 employees at Duke University have accepted voluntary buyouts under a program initiated this spring amid significant threats to the university’s funding under the Trump administration, according to an email sent to faculty and staff on Friday. Now, per the email, the university will make involuntary layoffs across campus in August.

“We determined that an involuntary reduction in force is necessary only after careful consideration and extensive consultation with leadership across Duke,” read the message from Duke Executive Vice President Daniel Ennis, Provost Alec Gallimore and School of Medicine dean Mary Klotman. Ahead of the layoffs, all university units will be asked to identify further non-personnel budget cuts they can implement, which will “determine the scale of” the layoffs.

The message added that “fewer employees will be affected” by the layoffs given the “high number” of employees — 599, to be exact — who participated in the voluntary buyouts. More than 250 faculty are also considering offers for voluntary retirement incentives, per the message.

“We recognize and are sorry for the impact these changes will have on our colleagues,” Ennis, Gallimore and Klotman wrote. Employees who are laid off will be notified between Aug. 5-19, per their message.

Friday’s announcement comes as Duke faces threats to its finances as the Trump administration has made major cuts to research funding [NOTE: other reports put the Duke research cuts at more than $400 million.]

Duke faces threats to its finances as the Trump administration has made major cuts to research funding and implemented policies affecting other university operations, such as increasing the tax rate on the endowments of Duke and other colleges. . . . [In] late April, as the university told faculty it sought to cut as much as 10% of its budget, or roughly $350 million, the university announced it would offer buyouts to staff. Those efforts were furthered by another round of buyouts for faculty, announced last month. “While the challenges before us are difficult, we are confident we can navigate them as a community and maintain exceptional support for our students, our world-renowned research and our core values,” Friday’s message read.

One of the country’s top research universities with a major health system, Duke employs more than 48,000 people across the Durham university. It is the Triangle’s largest employer and the second-largest private employer in North Carolina, behind only Walmart.

[Wow. Second only to Walmart?]

Duke isn’t the only local university grappling with the impacts of funding threats, though its buyouts and upcoming layoffs appear to be the most drastic response of schools in the Triangle. Salaries, hiring and other spending in the UNC System, which includes major research universities like UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State University, are currently restricted under a directive from system President Peter Hans enacted last month. [NOTE: other sources estimate cuts at non-Duke NC schools to be well over $100 million; more layoffs among them are expected.]

Now, for myself: I never attended or worked for Duke. But I live nearby, and am in frequent contact with—its medical system. Or should I  say, its (formerly) world-renowned and globally-recognized medical center, which has taken a big body blow in the current shearing. (And maybe that’s why my last visit to their ER was so long & lonely. And maybe that’s why they had the A/C down to frigid levels, to winnow out some of the homeless folks taking shelter there from the downpours of a rainy night. And maybe that’s why when I called last week to schedule a routine checkup, the first available date was  April 2026. Whuzzup??)

Wait a second: what was the URL of that Brain City ad??

On a second look, there was that forbidden diversity word again and again, and toward the end another incendiary, straight-out banned, getchew and your bad self in big trouble (& not the good kind) term: “welcoming . . .” Plus another very sketchy one . . . . “Cosmopolitanism”:

[Personal videos] provide insight into the diversity, excellence, interdisciplinarity and cosmopolitanism of the science metropolis Berlin. . . .

The basis for this top-class exchange is the high density of research institutions in the city – with four universities, seven universities of applied sciences, three art colleges, 25 State-recognised private universities, around 70 non-university research institutions, unique research alliances such as the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) or Berlin Research 50 (BR50) and numerous start-up centres. At a total of eleven Berlin locations of the future, cutting-edge research and industry are also working together to develop products and high-tech solutions for tomorrow.

More than 250,000 people from all over the world teach, research, work and study in the metropolis and are enthusiastic about Berlin. In the words of Brain City Ambassador Nishan Jaint: “The city is open, welcoming and very international. That makes Berlin something special.” (vdo)

Hmm. More to think about. And I bet I’m not the only one in Durham digging up this Brain City ad again.

No, not by a long shot.

Now, to the last big gotcha question:
Do the Berliners make decent barbecue?)