Author Archives: Hermann Observer

DSK, IMF, CSI-Yay-Yay

May 16, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus Tags: , , , , , , 4 Comments

(DSK stands for Dominique Strauss-Kahn) And don’t forget about the DNA, USA and the AL-I-BI part now either.

As Die Welt rightly puts it, this is like something out of a CSI: New York episode. Only much more poorly done. A bit more surreal though, perhaps.

Surreal is actually French, by the way. It means having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream and what on God’s green earth could you have possibly been thinking, buddy?

This is just too weird. And no, I haven’t found a German connection here yet.

Der bislang aussichtsreiche Präsidentschaftsanwärter der französischen Sozialisten sah aus, als sei er durch einen dummen Zufall in eine Folge von „CSI: New York“ hineingeraten.

PS: Thanks for that link, A.K.

In what part of Europe is Azerbaijan again?

May 15, 2011 By in High Art Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Yet another breathtaking performance. But the real question is “can Eurovision burnish Azerbaijan’s image (I didn’t know it even had one)?”

And sure they were predictably outrageous, but they’ll never make the top ten.

„Ich habe auf Aserbaidschan gewettet!“

Earth to academia, Earth to academia…

May 13, 2011 By in Habitudes, High Art Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Can you read me?

Eurovision is once again upon us, which is scary enough. But now it’s also time for us to find out that it has something called a “deeper meaning.” All it took for this was 35,000 pounds (€40,000) of British government funding, a few academics and a whole lot of not having a life. Here are just a few of the revolutionary revelations and fun facts about Eurovision that none of us really wanted to know about:

For the first time, there will be a major academic review of Eurovision, including a series of workshops that will be completed this weekend in Düsseldorf, Germany, where the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest is being hosted, and culminate with the publication of a book of essays. 
 
We have been assured that “it really takes international and multidisciplinary perspectives to even start to pick away at what Eurovision means.” Or why anyone would want to (pick away at it), I assume

Eurovision is “56 years of European pop, gender and representational history.” Not to mention the really sucky music part.

“Eurovision is an arena for European identification in which both national identity and also participation in a European identity are confirmed.” Yeah, OK. Whatever.

But of course not even seasoned academics can be expected to be experts at Eurovision geography, folks. Some of my personal Eurovision favorites, for instance, are European nations like Israel, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Morocco and Kazakhstan.

Little technicalities like these can be educational, however. “At least it gets people thinking about a country which normally wouldn’t cross their minds. Maybe they’ll look on a map to try to figure out where it is,”

And…

Eurovision is the world’s largest live non-sporting television event.

Eurovision has grown more since 1989 than either NATO or the European Union.

Eurovision is not just kitsch and lamé, it is “a night when Europe comes together symbolically” (and nasty stereotypes about national identity (in stereo) lead to animosity and symbolic surrogate war).

And last but not least, Eurovision is queer. “Another subject you won’t have to dig too deep into the academics’ footnotes to find is the ‘queerness’ of an annual event that has come to be known as ‘Gay Christmas.'”

So sit back this weekend and enjoy some European unity, televoting and really crappy music. Ho, ho, ho or something.

Not even semi-utopian Eurovision has succeeded in bridging every cultural divide.

You’re Guilty So You Go Free

May 12, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, History Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Well don’t ask me. That’s just how the system works here.

Germany’s “last major Holocaust trial” had to end this way, didn’t it? A German court found John Demjanjuk guilty of a abetting the killing of 27,900 people but then set him free despite the, uh, five year sentence.

Well he did have to sit through an eighteen month trial, you know.

The trial, he said, amounted to “torture.”

No Rubber Stamp Here

May 11, 2011 By in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Hotness Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

This isn’t Animal House, you know.

Clearly shocked by the Northwestern University sex-toy-in-human-sexuality-class-incident in US-Amerika, German Bundestag President Norbert Lammert just isn’t going to take any chances and has banned the sale of condoms in parliament here (they sold them in the cigarette machines–uh, can they buy condoms in Congress too?).

Just in case German parliamentarians get any weird ideas or something, I guess. And I’d rather not think about that if you don’t mind so I support this guy 100%.

“Students watched as a naked 25-year-old woman was penetrated by a sex toy.”

These photos should not be made public!

May 10, 2011 By in Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

You know, the photos proving how Star Trek Special Operations were in fact the ones who killed Osama Bin Laden. But it’s too late now. The Katze is out of the bag.

Someone at German news channel N24 who needs to have his enthusiasm curbed accidentally spilled the beans by actually producing the official logo of the “Star Trek Maquis Special Operations Seals Team VI” (one nasty bunch of 24th century terrorists), the real culprits behind bin Laden’s death, as we now know. Take him out and phaser him.

That explains why the helicopters were so quiet and stuff.

Closer inspection of the logo obtained by N24 should have turned up the notion that the skull is a little on the Klingon side.

Achtung, Achtung: Census.com!

May 9, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

First it was Google Street View, then Facebook, now another sinister new American data octopus is stretching out its tentacles to abuse German privacy rights anywhere and everywhere it can: Census.com!

Oops! False alarm. It looks like it’s a real German census and doesn’t even have a .com at all. But I’m nevertheless sure that the opposition to it will be massive, just like it was twenty-five years ago in West Germany when an uncountable number of Germans (think census–get it?) took to the streets to protest the government’s evil plan and even boycotted the survey.

Oops again already. Another false alarm. Nobody seems to give a hoot this time. Now everybody is lining up to get counted like sheep. What ever happened to civil disobedience? Even a little uncivil disobedience would be OK with me, people. Pitiful.

Statisticians predict that the survey may well reveal the German population is smaller than thought. The statistics office predicts that up to 1.3 million people still counted on regional population tallies may not actually exist.

Glad Sad Mad

May 8, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Or was it Sad Mad Glad? At any rate, Chancellor Merkel is now in hot water for “endorsing a crime” after she said that she was “glad” that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US forces.

A Hamburg judge has even filed a criminal complaint against her because of this “tacky and undignified” remark that only an American could love.

In typically German schizophrenic style, Schadenfreude (the enjoyment of others’ suffering) cannot be openly expressed in The Land of Schadenfreude. It simply isn’t done here (even though it’s done here privately all day long).

The Germans aren’t glad about this issue, that’s for sure. But they’re not sad about it either. Whether they’re mad or not is certainly up to debate, however.

“The Sad Mad Glad series makes the teaching of trustworthiness, responsibility, caring, respect, fairness, and citizenship an experience that parents and mentors will never forget.”