Monthly Archives: October 2014

German Goats These Days

October 2, 2014 By in High Art, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

They’re either demolishing automobiles in a place called Wiesental…

Dinorah

Or playing the lead role in an opera at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Like, a real goat. I don’t make this stuff up, people.

But I got to tell you that the really bizarre thing about this goat protagonist gig thing is that it isn’t even an original idea:

Dinorah was performed in New York (at the Academy of Music) in Italian on 24 November 1862. As a novelty, it attracted a great deal of attention and (starring the now nearly forgotten Angelina Cordier) was much “ballyooed”. One of its attractions was to be the appearance of an actual, live goat on stage, which “inspired a vast dissemination of facetious goat-lore in all the papers.”

Gazprom Gerd Pushing To Pass More Russian Gas

October 1, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

To Germany, that is. Not less (less was yesterday).

Gerd

And being chairman of the Shareholders’ Committee of Nord Stream, the Russian-German natural gas pipeline (51 percent owned by Gazprom, the Russian state gas monopoly), has absolutely nothing whatsoever at all in the slightest to do with this push one itty-bitty tiny little bit.

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (SPD) said Wednesday that Germany should deepen energy ties with Russia and urged an end to sanctions. Schroeder, who served as Social Democratic chancellor from 1998 to 2005, retains close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and celebrated his 70th birthday this year in St. Petersburg, where he was photographed in a bear hug with the Russian leader.

“We would be well-advised to further expand this energy and raw materials partnership with Russia.”