Monthly Archives: November 2013
Poor But Sexy But Stoned
Actually, depending upon who you choose to believe, Berlin isn’t nearly as poor but sexy as it used to be.
But that still leaves the stoned part (he said leaves). Talk about that counterculture paradise we were addressing yesterday. Councillors in Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg have now voted to launch the city’s/country’s first cannabis cafe in their district. See what happens.
I had no idea you could drink the stuff in your coffee, though.
German law prohibits the public sale of narcotics, but exceptions are possible “for scientific or other purposes in the public interest”.
Neurotic Impulse
And maladaptive reaction. Berlin, a counterculture paradise? I guess. A privacy haven? Keep on dreaming.
But it’s a lot more than that. Berlin has always been a place to hail heros who aren’t heros. That’s why this Snowden asylum nonsense fits like a glove here.
An international cadre of privacy advocates is settling in Germany’s once-divided capital, saying they feel safer here than they do in the United States or Britain, where authorities have vowed to prosecute leakers of official secrets…
One wants to be glad that Berlin (and Germany) is a sanctuary for people who have been subjected to inappropriate, excessive snooping by U.S. and U.K. authorities. Still, it’s always worth it, I think, to be a little skeptical of individuals, or groups, or cities and countries whose attitudes carry a whiff of neurotic impulse and maladaptive reaction. Berlin positively reeks of it…
It is an ironic twist for a sometimes-bleak city that was once better known as a backdrop to John le Carré novels.
Calling All Baseball Fans
In Berlin (all two or three of you?). Please sign this petition in support of the old baseball fields on Columbiadamm at Tempelhofer Feld (click the picture).
The Berlin Senat is planning to get rid of one of them to make room for a Friedhofserweiterung (cemetary expansion)? That about says it all, doesn’t it?
Thanks for the link, Indeterminacy. And yes, an ape may just have been keeping score there.
Ein weiterer Softballplatz in Zehlendorf wurde aufgrund zahlreichen Protestes eines Bewohners eines Einfamilienhauses vernichtet und steht ebenfalls nicht mehr zur Verfügung.
It Must Not Have Been German Ape Porn
In a behavior study taking place at a German zoo, scientists have discovered that apes prefer popcorn to movies showing explicit ape sex scenes.
Maybe they would get better results if they did a misbehavior study instead.
“Maybe they are not so interested, as Bonobo apes very often have sex anyway.”
Good German Scientists Helping Bad US Government Develop Killing Machines
Which is bad. Every dolt knows that German universities only do research for things having to do with goodness and niceness so these absent-minded professors clearly must have been tricked or something.
Word is that 22 German universities and research institutions have received more than $10 million from the US Defense Department’s budget since 2000. And this just has to be a bad thing. Doesn’t it?
Maybe the UN or Star Fleet Command could pass a resolution ensuring that science only be used for goodness and niceness in the future, the world over, just like it is here in Germany. Except sometimes when folks get tricked.
Yet once something is researched and published, it is available to anyone for any use. This gives rise to what researchers call a dual-use dilemma. Rockets that transport satellites into space, for example, could also be used to carry nuclear weapons. Knowledge about pathogens can be used to develop new medicines or biological weapons. Nuclear technology can harvest energy or build atomic bombs.
Pretraumatic Stress Disorder?
Please tell me what I don’t understand here. I just have to have missed something. I reread this article several times, too.
According to a German report about posttraumatic stress disorder, about one fifth of German soldiers suffer from psychische Vorerkrankung (pre-existing psychic strain) BEFORE they are deployed abroad.
I mean, I know Germans are super efficient and all that. But how the hell do you get posttraumatic stress disorder before you ever even make it to the post?
Laut einer Studie zu posttraumatischen Belastungsstörungen (PTBS) haben 20 Prozent der Soldaten eine psychische Vorerkrankung. So ist ihr Risiko größer, nach der Rückkehr unter Problemen zu leiden.
Germany Soon To Get The Government It Voted For
Not. In other countries you usually get the government you vote for. But not here in Germany. At least not this time.
Close only counts in horseshoes and dancing (and hand grenades). And Angela Merkel getting close to having an absolute majority in the German election two months ago just wasn’t close enough. So let’s hear it for proportional representation! The FDP is gone. The Greens are still licking their wounds. What’s left? The SPD and the Left party are left, that’s who’s left.
So now the losers are dictating the agenda. In more ways than one.
No, it’s not good news. And it gets worse. As part of his pivot to the left, Gabriel has promised that the Social Democrats will be open to coalitions with the Left party, the heirs of the East German Communists. Since the SPD, the Left and the Greens already hold a majority in parliament, the temptation for Gabriel to break with Merkel in, say, two years to form a “red-red-green” coalition with himself as chancellor could become irresistible.
Deutsche Sprache Schwere Sprache
German’s a bitch. That’s why German kids are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore and have begun to simplify it by introducing a new form of German that is, well, more like Turkish.
This year’s Langenscheidt-Verlag German youth word winner is “Babo” and is Turkish for boss, sort of.
Other recent not so memorable winners include “Yolo” (2012) for “yolo” and “Swag” (2011) for “swag.” Neither of these have a Turkish connection, however. But they are kind of on the short and sweet side.
Chabos wissen, wer der Babo ist.
Taylorismus-Made
Please read the following out loud in that classic monotone el cheapo Hollywood movie robot voice:
We are all robots here. No one talks. It is ghostly quiet here in the Amazon warehouse.
We are forced to wear these weird orange signal jackets. Amazon wants us to hand over our brains at the door once we enter here. There is no turning back.
Only the customer is allowed to have any individuality.
Everything is fully conform. Every step is standardized. Deviations would disrupt the calculation.
They have got me so far that I now do everything they say (just like I already do outside when watching the Tagesschau or when reading Spiegel Online).
I have no free will. We are all victims and are being ausgebeutet (exploited) to an unbearable degree. This is Kapitalismus pur or something. Oh my God we are all going to die. No, wait. We are dead already.
“Mich haben sie jetzt so weit. Ich mache, was man mir sagt.”
Observing Hermann 