“Schumer” and “Weinshall” are both ostensibly German names. Lots of names are, actually.

Flash back to Blazing Saddles. Considering a lot of things about that movie, why did a troupe of WWI picklehat wearing Prussian Germans come out behind Madeleine Kahn during the burlesque scene that’s set in the Wild West?

Something is hidden in Germany.

Linked, but unrelated, Iris’ replacement at NY DOT is a lady named Janette Sadik-Khan. Well ok, that’s odd. She’s married to a man named Mark Geistfeld. WHY does this woman have that last name?

Even reading the explanation doesn’t stop the double-takes.

Sadik-Khan was born in San Francisco, California, and moved to New York City as a child. She is the daughter of Orhan Idris Sadik-Khan (1929-2007), managing director of UBS Paine Webber, and his first wife Jane McCarthy, an environmental pioneer, one of the founders of Citizens for Clean Air in NYC, an urban preservationist, Chief Administrator Officer at the Municipal Art Society, and currently an advocate for criminal justice reform. Orhan Sadik-Khan was born in Finland,[3] and grew up in Berlin and Cairo, son of Afghan (Tatar) parents; his father was the imam Alimjan Idris,[4] and his mother a paediatrician.

That is just… wow.

“Schumer” and “Weinshall” are both ostensibly German names. Lots of names are, actually.

Flash back to Blazing Saddles. Considering a lot of things about that movie, why did a troupe of WWI picklehat wearing Prussian Germans come out behind Madeleine Kahn during the burlesque scene that’s set in the Wild West?

Something is hidden in Germany.

Linked, but unrelated, Iris’ replacement at NY DOT is a lady named Janette Sadik-Khan. Well ok, that’s odd. She’s married to a man named Mark Geistfeld. WHY does this woman have that last name?

Even reading the explanation doesn’t stop the double-takes.

Sadik-Khan was born in San Francisco, California, and moved to New York City as a child. She is the daughter of Orhan Idris Sadik-Khan (1929-2007), managing director of UBS Paine Webber, and his first wife Jane McCarthy, an environmental pioneer, one of the founders of Citizens for Clean Air in NYC, an urban preservationist, Chief Administrator Officer at the Municipal Art Society, and currently an advocate for criminal justice reform. Orhan Sadik-Khan was born in Finland,[3] and grew up in Berlin and Cairo, son of Afghan (Tatar) parents; his father was the imam Alimjan Idris,[4] and his mother a paediatrician.

That is just… wow.

“Schumer” and “Weinshall” are both ostensibly German names. Lots of names are, actually.

Flash back to Blazing Saddles. Considering a lot of things about that movie, why did a troupe of WWI picklehat wearing Prussian Germans come out behind Madeleine Kahn during the burlesque scene that’s set in the Wild West?

Something is hidden in Germany.