Owner: Observing Hermann... URL:http://hermann.blog.com/ Join Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 11:50:46 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Obviously dazed and confused about Germany in general and Berlin in particular, an amnesic American (or so his claim) observes the world around him in quiet (not) desperation. Site statistics:Click here
Oslo-cut as it gets 2008-04-14 10:50:00 Damn. It looks like there’s more to the German Chancellor than I thought.
While once representing her nation,
Chancellor Merkel caused quite a sensation,
She raised a few eyes while those looking surmised,
That she’ll never need breast augmentation.
And nobody uddered a word, or what?
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Her damit!
PS: Thanks for the Hillary cleavage analysis link, Volker.
Back to the future to the past again 2008-04-15 12:24:00 Germans can be einfach kompliziert (simply complicated) sometimes. And they don’t even seem to notice or mind all that much when they are being that way, too; which is kind of what makes all of this so complicated, which is simple enough, when you get down to it, really.
Take Oskar Lafontaine of the Left party, for instance, please. This guy belongs to a party that just got over “an issue” about firing one of its own for openly being a communist (the Left party, communist in essence you see, does everything it can to gain some middle ground here by telling everyone that they are in fact not) and now he wants to yank the rudder back over again by calling for parts of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto to be officially adopted as party policy (the Communist Manifesto, unlike Mei
You can’t train for this 2008-04-17 01:02:00 It’s not so surprising that a moving exhibition (in more ways than one) like the “Train of Commemoration” commemorating the thousands of children murdered by the Nazis can tour Germany and Berlin like this, what surprises me are the large turnouts of visitors who “still” come to see it.
The indifference that many younger Germans feel toward the awful subject, having been systematically (and understandably) subjected to it throughout their lives again and again as they have been, is not nearly as pronounced as I assumed it was. Young people everywhere, as described in this article, generally have better things to think about than the past, a past they can’t realistically be asked to take responsibility for, so I am pleasantly surprised at so many here so willing to review
German teen geek says we’re all gonna die 2008-04-16 10:51:00 Just when you think NASA is finally getting back up on its feet again… Sheesh. Then some Klugscheißer (smart alec) 13-year-old German
schoolboy comes along and double-checks their math (always a good idea, I think) and finds out that the Apophis asteroid does not in fact have a 1 in 45,000 chance of whacking our planet in 2029 or when it comes around for a second try in 2036, like we thought it did. No, no. The chance is more like 1 in 450, the little smartass and his smartasteroid calculations say.
Thanks for clearing that up for everybody, Nico.
This really pisses me off, you know. My calculations on the Apophis asteroid had been more like around 1 in 47,000 (how were yours?) so like what the hell does this little dweeb know that I, I mean, you or even we, don’t? The German scho Read more:gonna
Mozart goes underground 2008-04-18 11:58:00 Well, actually he already was, already. But Berliners just don’t want to leave him in peace or let him rest in such and it kind of goes a little like this: There’s this subway station in Berlin called Bundestag, which happens to be near the Bundestag, some here call it the Kanzler U-Bahn (the Chancellor’s subway) by the way, although she actually drives, I’m sure, or gets driven, or even occasionally walks, and because this here fancy almost-new station hasn’t quite opened up for business yet some enterprising enterpriser types have decided to “do” the Bundestag subway station and perform The Magic Flute down there.
Everyone is all excited about the big premiere except me, which will take place on the 26th of this month so get your tickets now. No, not BVG subway tickets, Read more:Mozart
Everybody has doubts 2008-04-19 03:27:00 Everybody has doubts now and again about decisions they have made. Even politicians do, although they are always the very last to admit it. It’s understandable, it could mean your job after all.
And although Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit may haughtily dismiss Chancellor Merkel’s recent comments supporting keeping Berlin’s Tempelhof airport open as being a “transparent party political maneuver”, and he should certainly know one of those when he sees one, it’s looking more and more like he and his left-wing buddies midtown are beginning to doubt their decision to and insistence upon shutting the place down.
On April 27 the city will vote on a referendum to keep Tempelhof open, the issue now having turned into a hot partisan battle between SPD and the Left on the left ( Read more:Everybody
Democracy? Nein, danke! 2008-04-21 11:09:00 Think the old Pink Floyd “we don’t need no education” line only replace it with democracy and that’s what you’ve got here in Germany, folks. If you trust these latest survey results, that is (which I don’t, nicht wirklich). Hey, that was from The Wall, wasn’t it? How ironic.
Anyway, according to the Leipzig Institute for Market Research, only 60 percent of Germans surveyed have confidence in the democratic system as it is practiced today in the Federal Republic of Germany (in the eastern part of Germany it’s less than half at 44 percent). But when it comes to authority, the survey says that 85 percent of Germans trust authority figures, like their police.
Don’t get me wrong, I think trusting the police is a good thing. But how does all of this fit together? On the one
Help me man, I’m sick 2008-04-23 09:34:00 So like here’s the latest and greatest only-in-Germany, help-me-because-I’m-a-victim-too-industry startup. Starting today, a group of business-savvy Berlin psychologists are opening Germany’s first advice bureau for stalkers. These guys are going to make a killing, too.
I know what you’re thinking: An advice bureau for stalkers? What, advising them how to stalk better or what? Nichts da (no way). This outreach center is actually designed to help cure those poor and unfortunate victims who have even poorer and more unfortunate victims that are still out of reach for them. At least for now, huh, huh, huh.
You know, explain to these guys, in this case during the course of 16 well-meant and emotionally-bonding counseling sessions, how it is that most people don’t consider st
Is Germany running out of wind? 2008-04-22 11:13:00 It’s bad enough for a straight-A wind energy Musterschuler (model student) like Germany
to suddenly fall back to fifth place in class (at least when it comes to the number of turbines installed last year, that is), but to be passed up in the process by the Mother of all Umweltsünder (environmental sinners), the United States of America herself, well, that’s about enough to knock the wind out of you, as in them, which is of course what it did.
It seems that new turbine installations in Germany have dropped a full 25 percent in the past few months, primarily due to subsidies that the government doesn’t want to pay anymore. So you see, for all of the loud talk about new breakthrough technology and wave of the future and the next big export industry thing and saving the planet, blah, Read more:running
Everybody’s agitated 2008-04-24 11:54:00 And agitating, too. Haven’t seen any fist fights yet, though. The Berliners vote on Sunday, you know, and I just stumbled across this baby on YouTube: "Alphaville - Save Tempelhof".
alt : &hl=en Read more:Everybody
Here's looking at you kid 2008-04-26 02:19:00 Well, I guess it’s time to say goodbye. You know, take leave, adieu, farewell, so long, auf Wiedersehen.
Anyway, I had this strange dream last night. It went something like this:
Hermann: Now, you've got to listen to me! Do you have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louie?
Louie (the shady French cop working in Berlin for some inexplicable reason): I’m afraid Mayor Wowereit would insist.
Tempelhof airport: You’re saying this only to make me go.
Hermann: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor, whoever that is. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that last Tempelhof plane leaves the ground and you'r
Take this brother, may it serve you well 2008-04-25 12:42:00 Tired of continually being asked “Where was the wall?” by all of those countless tourists who come to visit the city every year, a Berlin company called Mauerguide has “like had it totally up to here” or something and will start handing out hand-sized minicomputers next week which will show these annoying Quälgeister (nuisances) just where the damned thing stood already.
They’ll be handing them out for a hefty fee, of course, but this being a way cool and high-speed new economy type technology, everybody will understand and shell out the bucks, they hope.
Linked to global positioning satellites, these handy little Handy-like devices (a cell phone is called a Handy here) will show anyone with a need to know not only where the infamous Cold War monstrosity once stood (practica Read more:serve
Tempelhof is dead, long live Tempelhof! 2008-04-28 10:55:00 It was democracy in action again yesterday in Berlin, and it all went terribly wrong. Well, in my view it did. We all know that a government is only as good as the people who elect it (or vote it out of office), but if anybody ever had any doubts about referendums, well, here we have it. The same holds true for them, too.
Let’s do the numbers: Although opinion polls before the vote indicated that 60 percent of Berlin’s population was in favor of keeping Tempelhof open, only a mere 21 percent of those eligible even took the trouble to vote. Unfortunately, a 25 percent turnout was the minimum needed for the referendum to pass, the first such referendum in Berlin’s history, by the way.
But hey, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of a century-old chapter of her Read more:long live
Mysterious barnyard animal killings continue 2008-04-29 11:10:00 Just three days following the gruesome discovery of twenty dead sheep near a derailed train in a tunnel near Fulda, German police in Thuringia have now reported finding a number of dead cows near a rail crossing in their area, too.
“We don’t want to jump to any conclusions or anything,” said one country bumpkin cop near Erfurt. “But after talking with our colleagues in Fulda, it is pretty clear to us that the killer’s method of operation during both killing sprees is practically identical.”
A massive nation-wide search has now begun for the mysterious killer, his description having been given to police by several dazed passengers who had been travelling on the derailed Fulda train and who just happened to be looking out the window when the killings
took place or s
News item: No violence last night 2008-05-01 07:36:00 What’s wrong with everybody in Berlin these days? First tons of folks on the right side of the political spectrum fail to show up on election day and effectively sell Tempelhof down the river - and nobody even has the decency to jammern (moan) or meckern (gripe) about it later – and now the folks on the left side spit in the eye of on an age-old Berlin tradition and refuse to senselessly riot and burn in the streets during Walpurgis Night, and this despite the recent renaming of a downtown street in Rudi Dutschke Straße, in their honor, so-to-speak.
No respect, I tell ya. Whatever happened to civil courage when it comes to grassroots referendums and the lack of it when it comes to mindless mob rule, however fleeting? Freedom and free-for-alls aren’t free, people. We, I mean you,
Been there done that 2008-04-30 11:15:00 This discussion about lifting the ban on Hitler’s Mein Kampf in Germany, I mean. And although it’s nothing new when foreigners like me are dismayed about the fact that Mr. Psycho Man’s manifesto is still unavailable here (at least not openly and through the “proper” channels), I vaguely remember having read parts of it once in high school, by the way, it is a bit out of the ordinary when German historians openly push for its republication, now, or even now, or especially now, before the copyright lapses in 2015, that is.
Of course not even these guys are prepared to hand the rag over to their countrymen pur (straight), on the rocks, no chaser, so-to-speak. Germans being Germans and used to experts telling them what and how and sometimes even when to think (mischief makers here
Euro Schmoyro 2008-05-02 02:12:00 If you ask most Germans, and I wouldn’t if I were you, they will tell you that they want to have the Berlin Wall back. They also want the Sandmann, the World Cup, cheaper beer and gasoline, snow in the winter and Sabine Christiansen back, too (ich will, Anne Will, we all will). They will also tell you that they want Tempelhof Airport back and it isn’t even gone yet, but that’s another story. Well tough tooties, people. You can’t have them. It’s over. Move on.
And now they come at you heuldend (whining) about wanting to have their money back, too. Their old German as in Deutsche Mark currency money, I mean. Actually, they’ve wanted it back ever since it was yanked away from their cold and clutching fingers thirty or forty years ago or whenever it was and have made no secret a
Let’s all not get it together 2008-05-03 04:47:00 Proving yet again that you can be a smart and politically-aware German intellectual type and still not have the slightest idea what the Berlin Wall was, photographer Kai Wiedenhoefer and his Left and Green Party supporters in Berlin’s Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district will be exhibiting an exhibition which will equate the West Bank “Wall” with the Berlin one. This exhibitionism will be taking place on the eastern walls of the East Side Gallery, itself a wall, the largest remaining section of the Berlin Wall, get it? Am I going too fast?
That he doesn’t know why the Israelis have built the wall in the West Bank is perfectly understandable (he doesn’t want to understand, that would only make him sad), and that the US Americans only want to oppress Mexico by building the one alon Read more:together
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