Yes, baden gehen can mean to go swimming. But it can also mean to go belly-up or to flop horribly.
And that’s precisely what the German Greens’ top candidate Jürgen Trittin just did while taking part in an election “paddle outing” on the river Werra.
Me? Schadenfroh? Hell yeah. But hey, the federal election here is just 53 days away and you know how it is. Politicians just can’t avoid doing dopey stuff like this at times like this. So give him a break or something. And besides, this guy was all wet to begin with anyway.
The real question here is whether or not this is a portent of things to come. You know, for the Greens? We certainly wouldn’t want them to erleiden (suffer) a Schiffbruch (shipwreck) in the coming election, now would we? Or you wouldn’t, I’m sure.
Trittin, der in Göttingen für den Bundestag kandidiert, war mit Parteifreunden vom nordhessischen Witzenhausen bis ins südniedersächsische Hedemünden auf der Werra gepaddelt, um damit für einen Stopp sämtlicher Salzeinleitungen in den Fluss einzutreten.
Ok, this is hilarious! First, the subject of Schadenfreude: didn’t Juergen call George Bush a war criminal or something? Second, I know the Werra River in that area. A good friend of mine lives in a village near the river. The Werra used to be the BRD/DDR border back in the day. 10 years ago, my friends warned me to not let my dog swim in the Werra because several VEBs (Volks eigene Betrieb) dumped heavy metals and mercury into the Werra. I find it brave that the present Environmental Minister would indulge in a splash in the Werra. Finally, did you get the sequence of events from Der Spiegel’s photographer. It appears he was in an Old Town 2 man canoe with four people. The canoe appears to be up to its gunnels. I would say he was definitely risking a major Schifbruch!
Yeah, cracks me up too. They were there to protest the release of saline discharges into the river or something Green-like like that. They probably weren’t even aware of the heavy metals and mercury you speak of or they wouldn’t have gone near the place.
What bugs me about the Greens is less this save-the-world-robin-hood attitude they have, it’s the arrogant “von oben herab” attitude they have for anybody who doesn’t buy them being the save-the-world-robin-hoods they imagine themselves to be. They really truly look down at people from up there high above and this Trittin guy is the poster boy for that if you ask me. He’s got the best smirk in the land – except when he’s floating in the river all wet like that.
Observing Hermann 
Ok, this is hilarious! First, the subject of Schadenfreude: didn’t Juergen call George Bush a war criminal or something? Second, I know the Werra River in that area. A good friend of mine lives in a village near the river. The Werra used to be the BRD/DDR border back in the day. 10 years ago, my friends warned me to not let my dog swim in the Werra because several VEBs (Volks eigene Betrieb) dumped heavy metals and mercury into the Werra. I find it brave that the present Environmental Minister would indulge in a splash in the Werra. Finally, did you get the sequence of events from Der Spiegel’s photographer. It appears he was in an Old Town 2 man canoe with four people. The canoe appears to be up to its gunnels. I would say he was definitely risking a major Schifbruch!
Yeah, cracks me up too. They were there to protest the release of saline discharges into the river or something Green-like like that. They probably weren’t even aware of the heavy metals and mercury you speak of or they wouldn’t have gone near the place.
What bugs me about the Greens is less this save-the-world-robin-hood attitude they have, it’s the arrogant “von oben herab” attitude they have for anybody who doesn’t buy them being the save-the-world-robin-hoods they imagine themselves to be. They really truly look down at people from up there high above and this Trittin guy is the poster boy for that if you ask me. He’s got the best smirk in the land – except when he’s floating in the river all wet like that.
“Is it getting solipsistic in here, or is it just wet, green old me?”