Yeah, sure. This kind of thing happens here in Germany all the time. Talk about your Loch (hole) Ness Monster.
Authorities in a place called Schmalkalden (itself a bit of hole, I guess) say that this big honking 98-foot-deep-mega-crater that just caved in out of nowhere today and ate somebody’s car and who the hell knows what else was caused by natural factors rather than bad industrial things like mining or whatever so don’t worry because it’s a “bio-hole” or something and therefore good for you so everything’s OK people and just keep on moving along (in big, concentric circles), nothing to see here.
“Luther said residents were lucky not to have been hurt.”
Observing Hermann 
A “free-range” hole?
By the way, Der Spiegel has just published its annual piece on the imminent collapse of the United States:
A Superpower in Decline.
I wake up this morning here and NY and read:
The Desperate States of America are loud and distressed. The country has always been a little paranoid, but now it’s also despondent, hopeless and pessimistic.
Hey, I’m on my second cup of coffee and feeling much better.
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Yeah Jeffrey. That “Superpower in Decline” is a beauty, a standard, an evergreen, a staple food here. It’s “immer wieder gern gesehen” always welcome, a sight for sore eyes. They tweak it a little this way and then that way a little, depending upon the season and the political climate (which as we all know is changing, right?), but what I find more interesting is the fact that the core message never really changes at all. These folks are totally conservative in that respect. Hey, like the Bible says: There is nothing new under the sun.
If Konrad Adenauer was still alive, he´d spank their butts for their historical deficits and personal envy on not being “das Käs´je” (the cheese) of mother earth.
Men of many words, are simply not men of deeds!
When they’re done jerking themseleves off to the the notion that “the American Drean is Ofer!”, they might think for a moment that this meme has been repeated in the German press at leat once a year for teh past 3 decades.
F’ em.
So right, guys. And that’s the term I was looking for, Joe: Meme. Thanks. The next variation will be, I suspect, how Obama almost saved America but was thwarted by those evil Tea Party wackos. This American Untergang stuff is a gift that just keeps on giving (Gift means poison in German, by the way).
For the newly arrived American in Germanland, one of the biggest shocks is to discover the mixture of fascination, envy, anxiety, and revulsion that the idea of America creates in Germans, especially in the Gymnasium-Uni Germans. In the US, Americans rarely think about Germany. The average American thinks Germans make good cars and that the customs are no doubt different from ours. Germans play soccer; we play football. To each his own. So, in the American media, you would never find an entire issue of a weekly magazine focused on the schadenfreudlich anticipated collapse of German society. In fact, Germany rarely makes the front page of the major newspapers in the US.
I recall, when I first lived in Germany back in the mid-80s, how odd it felt to see all matters about the US covered constantly in the German media. Most Germans are not aware of how unequal this focus is. Germans, I’m sure, are surprised when they move to the States and find out that Americans rarely talk or think about Germany.
I first read a variation of this Untergang Amerika article already back in the 80s. As HO points out, it’s a Gift that keeps the German media in readership. Deep down, Germans know that they are simply smarter and better and more talented than the mongrel Amis. They cannot understand why we are so successful in business, science, and the arts. If you really push a German, he will admit that he has no idea how a bunch mongrel Americans lead the world in science and technology. It makes no sense. And that’s why these Untergang Amerika articles are so soothing to German nerves.
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Right on the money. And speaking of science and technology (and the business invariably tied to it), if it’s amerikanisch, there’s something wrong with it (as in EVIL). Because of the business aspect? Think about the current Street View show going on here, for instance. Or is it Facebook at the moment? I forget. Whatever.
HO,
Ripley over at Schnitzel Republic has an entry on the latest Spiegel Untergang Amerika article.
The Elite Game of Spiegel.
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