Monthly Archives: August 2009

German campaign’s lack of substance not anything like Obama’s was

August 21, 2009 By in Helplessness Tags: 1 Comment

“German politicians are drawing on the lessons of the U.S. presidential campaign by embracing the Internet and experimenting with townhall meetings, but what worked for Barack Obama seems to be backfiring here.”

Yes we can two, I mean too.

“Both candidates are using chatrooms, blogs and Twitter to woo voters and have used U.S-style townhall formats in television appearances.”

But…”You can’t copy and paste Obama because that would be the wrong thing to do and it can quickly turn out to be embarrassing,”

“The trouble for the campaign managers, analysts say, is that no amount of innovative tactics can compensate for a lack of substance.”

Huh? I thought that is how Obama got elected in the first place. Whatever.

“Just last year, former SPD General Secretary Hubertus Heil was ridiculed after he tried to get party conference delegates to chant ‘Yes, we can!’ only to be met with a deafening silence.”

Now that we’re no longer the world’s top exporter…

August 20, 2009 By in Heconomy, Hurt Feelings Tags: 3 Comments

It’s finally okay for us to start buying Japanese cars too!

I'm trading this in for a Toyota too.

Or at least that’s what German Green Party whip Renate Künast seems to think. With calls for “Buy hybrid cars from Toyota!” and other provocative German-car-industry-bashing and name-calling name calls, Künast is hurting her fellow Germans’ German car loving feelings right and left. Or maybe she isn’t, hard to say for sure.

Personally, I’ve always felt that Germans secretly want to own Japanese cars (you rarely see one here, you know), it’s just that their families would disown them and the neighbors wouldn’t understand. Not that they do now, the neighbors, but still.

So, who knows? Maybe this offensive Green offensive might be the final straw to finally break the back of German Japanese car resistance and mobilize the already highly mobile German population to finally get out there and buy some Made in Japan already.

Or maybe it might just get the German car industry to finally budge just this little itsy bitty bit and start making more environmentally friendly automobiles. Nah.

„Wenn die Deutschen zu blöd sind, moderne Autos zu bauen, muss man den Leuten empfehlen, Toyota Prius zu kaufen.“

Let’s champion something else for awhile

August 19, 2009 By in Heconomy Tags: 3 Comments

Although the title may be an unofficial one, it looks like its official now: Germany is poised to lose the title of world’s top exporter this year – to China (who else?).  The recession may be over here (or not), but the recession elsewhere continues to lower the demand for expensive German cars, machinery and other Teutonic stuff.

Only dummies would buy these cars.

In other words, the rest of the world is now doing what the Germans have been doing here all along: The cheaper the better. No, that’s not a dance, although it might become one.

“Germany’s trading partners are going more for cheaper products right now.”

This is not a crocodile

August 18, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 2 Comments

I don’t know what it is, but Germans are doggedly determined to find crocodiles in their lakes, rivers and streams. Crocodiles that aren’t there, I mean. This time, two girls in Bavaria saw one (not) and got the country’s crocodile hunters (professional and otherwise) all tied up in a knot for a few minutes of non-fame.

The last crocodile that wasn’t one turned out to be a turtle. The one before that was probably a bottle of corn schnapps.  And the one before that…

Ceci n'est pas une crocodille.

Okay, so you’ve had your little Sommerloch (silly summer season) scare again (not). It’s time to go back to school and/or work again or something already.

„Die Beamten gehen nun aber davon aus, dass es ein Biber oder auch ein größerer Fisch war, der die Mädchen erschreckte.“

Yeah, but where’s the Currywurst?

August 16, 2009 By in Home Cooking Tags: 1 Comment

To eat, I mean. What is this, people? Berlin opens up the world’s first (and last) Currywurst Museum and the Betreiber (operator) folks don’t even have the decency to offer their guests one (or two) to eat.

Typical Currywurst

They won’t be opening the eating lounge part for another few weeks, you see. But at least for that you can sit on the sausage sofa right now.

“Das ist wieder typisch Berlin!”

It’s all in how you say it

August 14, 2009 By in History Tags: 1 Comment

And only if you say it in English, of course. A German court has ruled that bad Nazi words, although still bad, are not nearly as bad if they are translated to English first and then said “there”, so-to-speak, making them legal, sort of, but just barely. There is a certain logic here, of course. Please tell me once you find it.

Mein Cramp

Meanwhile… Elsewhere in the English-speaking world… A signed copy of Mein Kampf (signed by you-know-who) was sold in England for a record $35000.

The guy who bought it was a Russian, however, which makes this okay, I think. If a Russian who can’t read German buys a bad German book signed by you-know-who in England then you could take the whole thing to court (here in Germany) and nobody would really much care, I think.

“In memory of our time together in prison in Landsberg.”

The Berlin Wall of Wilshire Boulevard

August 12, 2009 By in History Tags: Leave a comment

Hey, somebody’s got to do it, I guess. And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I’ve been told.

Wilshire Boulevard

“In what government and arts officials are calling the most ambitious commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany, a symbolic re-creation of the wall that once separated East and West Berlin will be erected across Wilshire Boulevard in November.

The Wall Project, painted by professional and amateur artists, will close Sunday afternoon traffic on one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares for three hours on Nov. 8 beginning at 3 p.m… It will be made up of two parts: The “Wall Across Wilshire” will have as its adjunct the “Wall Along Wilshire — Eastside Gallery West,” which will have a somewhat longer life in front of the 5900 Wilshire Blvd. building, remaining in place from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14.”

The location is “highly symbolic,” said Justinian Jampol, president and founder of the Wende Museum. “It connects downtown to the ocean, those two cultural anchors to the city.