Category Archives: Habitudes
Nix religion here!
Just like we knew they would, voters in the capital of atheism (and apathy) have pulled through again and voted against allowing secondary school children the choice of taking religion instead of ethics.
And a whopping 29.2 percent of Berlin’s voters actually turned out to vote too, even though the sun was shining yesterday. Well, 29.2 percent is a whopping amount of voters over here. When the sun is shining and the discussion turns to religion, I mean.
It’s strange, really. There was a lot of heated debate about this so-called issue beforehand but in the end everybody already knew that nobody really would really care. Germans have trouble voting yes for things like free choice, you see (whether the sun is shining or not), but voting no here is always a no-brainer, regardless of the turnout, which in this case is a no vote, too.
“The opposing side scored 48.5 percent but even if it had inched ahead and won, turnout was too low for the referendum to have been valid with only 14.2 percent of Berliner’s 2.4 million voters ticking the “yes” box.”
True religion
It’s another one of these typical German moments, fighting about something that doesn’t really matter or mean much in the end anyway. But maybe that’s why Germans fight about trivial things like this to begin with. If it were ever about a real issue, they would have to take a real stand.
Anyway, Berliners are all up-in-arms (yawn) about a referendum on religion and ethics which will be held here this weekend. Being neither particularly religious nor all that ethical, this is the kind of referendum that’s right up their alley.
In a nutshell, students here are required to take ethics at school and have religion as an elective course they could choose to take instead. An initiative calling itself Pro Reli wants students to decide between the two courses, thus giving the religion course a bit of a push, I guess.
Not only are Berliners apathetic about ethics in general and religion in particular (60 percent are officially non-religious), like I said, they aren’t terribly thrilled about referendums, either (see Tempelhof). And being that participation of at least 25 percent of all eligible voters is required for the referendum to even be binding, the whole shebang will most likely have been for naught. So, well, that will make everybody happy in the end, I guess.
„Knapp 50 Prozent der Berliner sind für die Einführung eines Wahlpflichtfachs Religion – doch wollen nur wenige Bürger auch beim Volksentscheid am 26. April für diesen Vorschlag der Initiative Pro Reli stimmen.“
Yankee bombs go home!
Talk about peace bis zum Umfallen (tell you drop). In a typical “yes we can, too” kind of unoriginal copycat statesman approach, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has played his obligatory Easter-time peace card by not so boldly calling for American Yankee nuclear weapons to be removed from Germany. But only after the head Yankee gave him the go ahead to do so, of course.
Not wanting to miss out on all the letting-there-be-peace festivities all those thousands or at least hundreds of other German peace activist types will be celebrating all across the country this weekend, Steinmeier, hoping to become the next Chancellor later this year, just couldn’t bring himself to take part in one of those cool sit-ins at at a US military base so he went for the more politically correct nuclear weapon ban thing instead.
He is however expected to call for “NATO out of Afghanistan” with everybody else before all too long.
“The US has promised to send 21,000 additional troops to the region to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban. Germany has pledged to send an additional 600 troops this summer to secure the Afghan elections.”
PS: One peace activist even tried to reach an olive branch over to our friends in the animal kingdom aber das ging in die Hose (but that went awry).
Wow, what a deal!
Turning a typical yes-we-love-you-but-lip-service-is-all-you-get pirouette, Germany and other European partners have successfully, well, lip serviced President Obama during this weekend’s NATO summit with a passionate endorsement Bussi (kiss) for his new Afghan strategy while handing him a great big nichts dahinter (nothing behind it) welcome bouquet.
To underscore their sincerity, or lack of it, our stalwart partners have agreed to send, now get this, a jaw-dropping contingent of 3,000 troops to protect elections there next August. Not only that, a few new military training teams will also be sent to strengthen Afghanistan’s, uh, already amazingly strong army. And just to put the icing on the top of the injury, I mean cake, a handful of European civilian experts will be flown in to “consolidate the government” down there, whatever that means.
These are promising promises which promise to bring even more promise to President Obama’s promising start in jolly old Europe – oops, I meant in jolly Europe, of course.
“At a closing news conference, Obama portrayed the outcome as a success for his maiden encounter with NATO summitry, suggesting that trainers and civilians can be just as valuable as fighters.”
Gimme an N!
Gimme an A! Gimme a T! Gimme an O!
What’s that spell (if your German)?
No more Afghanistan Troops, Obama!
What’s that spell (if your German)?
No more Afghanistan Troops, Obama!
What’s that spell (if your German)?
No more Afghanistan Troops, Obama!
Don’t ask. Just felt like doing a little NATO Woodstock kind of thing today.
“His NATO allies are giving the president considerable vocal support for the newly integrated strategy. But they are giving him very few new troops on the ground, underlining the fundamental strains in the alliance.”
YouTube German style
Germans have this thing with G words. You know, like Gier (greed) or Geld (money)? Your money, actually (and their greed). If you live here, that is.
Whether it’s the Gebühreneinzugszentrale (the television fee collecting central office or GEZ) or the GEMA (Germany‘s music royalty organization) or even the Government itself, all of these wonderful agencies are out to collect taxes, fees and royalties. And all of this is for your own good, of course. And this is so because, well, if they didn’t do it, no one else would.
And that is why as of yesterday, Google (another G Word, by the way) no longer allows users with German IP addresses to watch music videos on YouTube. Negotiations broke down between the music industry and Google over compensation for copyright holders because the GEMA wants, well, way too much. But like I said, they’re only doing this for your own good. And mine, too.
Hey, wait a minute. Come to think of it, German is a G Word, too.
“In addition to this squabbling over the per-song licensing rate, GEMA accused Google of a lack of transparency when it comes to which songs were played, and how many times they were played.”
We’re caught in our safety nets
And we like it. Ask the Germans.
Who needs a big stimulus package when the German state has never been anything other than a big stimulus package itself? Or at least that appears to be the way the thinking goes here right now.
Europe loves Obama, but they don’t love him that much. Locked in to their so-called social safety nets which already drain them of the cash and maneuverability they might otherwise have for stimulating the economy now, the Europeans will predictably preach stricter regulation at this weekend’s G-20 summit instead (that doesn’t cost anything).
No talk or even thought of big spending or safety net cold turkey here, folks, most certainly not in a German election year. And the President probably feels their pain, too. He can’t even quit smoking.
“Europe’s extensive job protections and unemployment benefits are bad in the upswing, because firms don’t dare to hire people, because then they are glued to them.”
Trains, planes and automobiles
But mostly trains, really. Still not willing to take that first step toward recovery by openly recognizing that they even have a serious problem, scores of Germans in denial (yesterday’s retiree bludgeon murderer at Old Hermann has most certainly been among them) won’t stop visiting the world’s largest model train set at Hamburg’s “Miniature Wonderland.”
“Set on three floors in an old warehouse along the Elbe River, Miniatur Wunderland features realistic replicas of parts of Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the U.S. Figurines about a half-inch (just over one-centimeter) high represent people in all walks of life.”
You have to bring your own sleeping bag, though. Yawn, Schnarch (yawn) already. Or I would have to, if I ever go, which I won’t. Not even for money, unless it’s a whole lot, maybe. I don’t believe in wonderlands. I’ve seen too many of them.
“Es ist ein Traum.” (or a Tram?)
Took a little longer than usual this time
“Violent video games have come under attack here in the wake of last week’s shooting, in which a former student gunned down 15 people at a high school in southern Germany. Media reports and local politicians have pointed to the fact that the shooter played popular video game “Counter Strike” as a factor in the massacre.”
Observing Hermann 