Category Archives: Habitudes

Soccer Really Is A Woman’s Sport

June 21, 2011 By in Habitudes, History, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Former Germany captain Michael Ballack stepped up his sharp criticism of Germany coach Joachim Loew, saying he had already decided to quit the national team when Loew announced that the player had no future with the side.

The 34-year-old former Chelsea midfielder said on Sunday that he wanted to announce the decision himself.

Ballack and the German football federation (DFB) have been trading barbs ever since Loew made the announcement on Thursday.

Meanwhile…

The octopussies. The men, I mean.

“We agreed that I would make the announcement myself during the summer break.”

Skippy is approaching the Hauptstadt!

June 17, 2011 By in Habitudes, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Germans are always finding wild animals that don’t belong in their natural German habitat. It’s just what they do.

The other day it was racoon attacks in the Government Quarter. Last October it was a mysterious black panther monster in Trier. Then there are the obligitory annual alligator/crocodile sightings. Now it’s a freakin’ kangaroo in Brandenburg.

I’m still waiting for the pink elephants, though. What is it with this Extrawurst (being something special) mentality here? Why can’t they just tell fish stories and get abducted by aliens like everybody else does?

Die Spur verlor sich dann. Es gebe bisher keine Hinweise, woher das Tier stammt oder wem es gehört.

A Country Named Sue

June 14, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Heconomy, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

You sue, I sue, we all do (sue). And here I thought Germany was the land of Konsens (consensus – not common sense). At least when it comes to doing this nuclear phaseout thang, I mean. Fooled again.

OK, it is logical and predictable that Germany’s power companies now have hurt feelings and are preparing to take legal action against the government’s decision to shut down their nuclear power plants because, well, the government is shutting down their nuclear power plants.

But what about all the thousands of lawsuits being prepared by power-line, wind energy and other regional resistance group apponents the nation over set to flood the lawsuit market once these big honkin’ power-line thingies start going up? You know, the power-lines that will transport the good offshore wind farm energy from the north to the bad industrial south?

Why can’t we (as in you) learn to live together in simple peace and harmony? Now that the nuclear power dragon has finally been slain, I mean. Come on, folks. Join hands, form a circle, sit down and talk.

Specifically, they will invoke Article 14 of the German constitution, which addresses the question of whether the companies’ assets are being expropriated, and if they are therefore entitled to compensation. After that, the amount of compensation would be negotiated in civil courts. According to internal calculations, the industry envisions a potential sum of €20 billion ($29 billion). The burden would ultimately fall on taxpayers.

Courage? In German Politics?

June 3, 2011 By in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

In US politics, rhetoric is an art form, leading to vigorous debate and vibrant political life. Not so in Germany, where fear and faintheartedness have resulted in a lack of vision and a shortage of personality.

Political peer pressure has spawned a military-like obedience. When did those at the top begin perceiving the individuality of those rising behind them as a threat? In Berlin, vagueness is seen as the perfect position, hedging as a tactical necessity and clear positions as hazardous.

A similarly noxious development is taking place in the world of journalism. Americans use the phrase “24/7” — a state of constant breathlessness — in reference to the modern news cycle. The online media (not exclusively, but more so than others) contribute to a tabloidization of political journalism by using the sort of pointed emphasis designed to generate more page views from readers… And its effects are as likely to promote hysteria as in Germany. 

More Green Shirt Activity

May 30, 2011 By in Habitudes, Helections, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

See? I told ya.

Greenpeace activists climbed on top of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate yesterday to demand a speedy end to the use of atomic energy (by 2015).

I guess 2022 just ain’t speedy enough.

“Every day of Green terror is one day too many (my translation).”

PS: The best part about the article was the Google ad I saw next to it: “Price check for 900 electicity providers: Compare prices and save money today!”

Left-Wing Extremists Attack Berlin S-Bahn System, Nobody Notices

May 25, 2011 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Helplessness, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Long used to irregular service, missing trains and outages and shortages of every conceivable kind, tens of thousands of Berlin commuters failed to notice that they were the innocent victims of a vicious left-wing extremist arson attack yesterday.

Huge sections of the Berlin S-Bahn system (some here call it the Stress-Bahn) were disrupted on Monday after a left-wing group set a fire at the Ostkreuz station that caused utter chaos, as usual. In a communiqué issued by the group, they expressed their hope that the attack would be a valuable contribution to the valiant fight against nuclear power (in other countries I assume, as Germany has already capitulated here), militarism and racism, although not necessarily in that order.

“This is absoulutely shocking,” one stunned commuter noted. “I should have known something was up when I actually made it to work thirty minutes earlier than usual. The terrorist bastards.”

Police in Berlin have recently made some progress in fighting left-wing extremism, with the number of arson attacks on cars attributed to anarchists down to 54 in 2010 from 145 a year earlier.

German Vocabulary of the Day

May 23, 2011 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hi-tech, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Alleingang: Going it alone.

Although every German knows that things go invariably terribly wrong whenever Germans do this (go it alone), they sometimes simply just can’t help themselves (think the recent UN Libya resolution episode, for instance) and let this atavistic throwback throw them back to behavior (misbehavior) they will bald (soon) regret. For the latest case in point see Ausstieg.

Ausstieg: This means to exit, phase-out. Germans are the born Aussteiger (exit-ers or escapists), but this is getting ever harder and harder for them to do. Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA (not IKEA), for instance,  has warned Germany about going their nuclear phase-out alone (see Alleingang). Germany’s policies here affect all of Europe, he says, and “it’s not about a German problem, it’s an overall European problem.”

Blackout: This means blackout. German power companies are now warning that should the Ausstieg and Alleingang described above be implemented too quickly and too efficiently (a grave possibility in Germany), they will not be able to guarantee an uninterupted power supply for their customers in Southern Germany during the so-called “winter” months.

Die Netzfirmen warnten, wenn nur die im Zuge des Atom-Moratoriums stillgelegten Alt-Meiler weiter vom Netz blieben, fehlten an kalten Wintertagen in Süddeutschland etwa 2000 Megawatt Leistung.

This New-Fangled EBOOK Nonsense Ain’t Never Gonna Happen Here

May 22, 2011 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Not in Germany it ain’t. No way. It’s, uh, I dunno. It’s just plain wrong. It’s too American or something.

Let Amazon & Co. sell all the damned ebooks they want to over yonder (currently 105 ebooks for every 100 printed at Amazon), we’re sticking to tradition and our traditional fixed book prices (this protects our culture somehow) and the unfair taxation and the measly 0.5 percent ebook sales of total volume of books sold in Germany (sure we only got around to introducing the Kindle here just a few weeks back, but still).

Remember this: Germans don’t read ebooks.

And remember this too: Television had no future (radio pioneer Mary Somerville) and the world only needed five computers at most (IBM president Thomas J. Watson).

Verlage und Buchhandlungen in Deutschland sind zögerlich, weil die Investitionen hoch und die Gewinnspannen niedrig sind und es außerdem mal wieder Streit um die Mehrwertsteuer gibt: Während gedruckte Bücher einem ermäßigten Satz von sieben Prozent unterliegen, sind es für E-Books 19. Und bis das ausdiskutiert ist, wird vermutlich auch Amazon.de mehr E-Books als Bücher verkaufen. Denn in Deutschland wurde der Kindle ja erst vor vier Wochen eingeführt.

Green Eco Dictatorship

May 17, 2011 By in Habitudes, Heconomy, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Green Types everywhere out there know that this Stuttgart 21 train station thingy cannot be allowed to be built, no matter what (the rest of us out there still don’t know just why that is but maybe we’ll figure it out yet).

And now that Stuttgart (Baden-Wuerttemberg) is Green politically, Green Terror Types are starting to come out of the woodwork and beginning to take matters into their own green hands (just like Oma und Opa used to take matters into their brown ones).

Or as Henryk Broder reports it in that provocative way he does:

The Federal Republic made a great step forward toward becoming a Green eco dictatorship yesterday. The project manager for Stuttgart 21, Hany Azer (migration background, by the way) has resigned from his post.

The reasons he named were “hostility and threats” from Stuttgart 21 opponents. Most recently he has only been able to work while under protection of the company’s personal security personnel. This news item should have caused great alarm (but it didn’t).

Oh I dunno. As long as they don’t start wearing green shirts and stuff like that everything will turn out OK… Won’t it?

Jeder Fall von sexueller Belästigung in einem Großraumbüro löst überregionale Schlagzeilen aus. Aber wenn einer der besten Ingenieure der Republik, der unter anderem Projektleiter für den Bau des Berliner Hauptbahnhofs gewesen ist, aus dem Job gemobbt wird, regt sich nicht einmal Frank Bsirske darüber auf.

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.