Category Archives: Habitudes

Trains, planes and automobiles

March 27, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 1 Comment

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.”  

 

Wie wunderbar or something.

 

“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

March 20, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 2 Comments

 No gaming around with us.

“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.”

How do you do this, Germany?

March 15, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 8 Comments

With all this gun control and pacifism of yours, I mean. “Germany is now second only to the US in terms of the number of deaths that have resulted from school shootings.”

 

  

 

Even some of you must realize by now that your attempts to find blame for these horror fests in that threatening, shadowy and sinister thing you see as US-Amerika leads nowhere but to your own damned front doorstep. People are sick all over, sicker than you are willing to admit, but if it makes you feel better…

 

Finding blame is a waste of time too, by the way. But that’s another sad story.

 

“Mass killer ‘rejected’ by girl at party.”

It can happen to anyone who does it on purpose

March 5, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 1 Comment

Annoying German journalist imposter dude Günter Wallraff recently chose some of the coldest winter days during one of the coldest German winters on record to pretend he was a homeless person in Frankfurt in order to prove that this is an unpleasant thing to be, much less do.

 

 It's cold out there in the winter, too.

 

Among other things, Wallraff discovered that 1) many of those living on the street today had not always been living on the street before 2) that if one doesn’t have an apartment or a house with a real address, nobody can mail you anything and 3) that many of the homeless look almost like those who have homes, only their hair is often uncombed and their clothing is sometimes somewhat dirtier. This is also called investigative journalism over here, by the way. Only in German, of course.

 

“Sure,” said a freshly destitute and homeless Frankfurt financial banker when asked about Wallraff’s latest shocking undercover coup. “Anybody who doesn’t have to can come out here and freeze his ass off with the rest of us real street folks if he wants to, I just can’t figure out why on earth anybody would.”

 

„Ich hatte früher selbst Vorurteile und habe öfter einen Bogen gemacht um jüngere Leute, die auf der Straße lagerten und mir ihren Becher hinhielten.“

Boris won’t stop engaging us

March 3, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 4 Comments

Or you, I should say. With his public marriage proposal announcement intervals now dropping to their lowest levels since 1997 (only every seven months now), aging ex-tennis star exhibitionist Boris Becker just can’t stop asking women to marry him.

 

Boom, boom, boom.

 

The mentally disturbed, doped or drunken German jock (or all three?) announced his most recent engagement to model Lilly Kerssenberg on Germany’s popular “Wetten, dass…?” (Wanna bet?) TV show just seven months after having asked German socialite Sandy Meyer-Woelden to do the same thing, in pretty much the same way.

 

And no, it wasn’t one of the bets, but maybe during next month’s show.

 

“I know lots of people who won’t understand me, but we’re only human.”

Limp, limper, am limpsten

February 20, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 1 Comment

Or lame, if you prefer. What some are praising as an impressive and welcomed response by Germany, others are clearly less than impressed. Germany will be sending litterally, uh, hundreds of new troops to the northern reaches of Afghanistan in the coming months while US forces in that country will be beefed up another 17,000.

 

 Let's have another meeting again or something.

 

Wasn’t everything supposed to be better after Obama? “The message (from Washington) is that it is a new administration and is prepared to make additional commitments to Afghanistan. But there clearly will be expectations that the allies must do more as well,” US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters the other day. He was basically asking for a few of NATO’s so-called Rapid Response Force (NRF) troops, which have never been used, of course.

And this is Germany’s response to the new message coming out of Washington? Like other European countries who have announced to send additional troops to Afghanistan, Germany will send hundreds, not thousands. And none of them are destined for combat with the Taliban, either.

 

And to top it off, Germany insists that the NRF should not be used for Afghan duty at all. “The NRF should not be used as a reserve,” German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said. “The NRF has fundamentally different tasks.” Yeah, like being kept on reserve in Europe, I guess, forever.

 

“US officials have long been frustrated by European reluctance to make new long-term troop commitments to the Afghan mission and Gates said it was unlikely that large increases would be forthcoming anytime soon.“

Exotic muss es sein

February 15, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: Leave a comment

„American cinema is the big winner at the 59th Berlin Film Festival. Of the nine official Bear awards given, five went to films made across the pond – four of those went to South America, however. This year’s jury in Berlin was again consistent in selecting the strangest film for its audience and followed this principle to its extreme.”

 

No surprises here.

 

It’s another heart-warming story about a young woman who was born of her mother’s rape in the 1980s, this time in Peru. The same film was made last year (or was it the year before?) in Croatia or Bosnia or somewhere, but I can’t remember if it got first place or not. Why am I the only one who finds this humorous? Oh, the glamour.

 

„Ein durchschnittlicher Berlinale-Interessierter wird von Kate Winslet im „Vorleser“ gelesen und Heike Makatsch aus „Hilde“ auf dem roten Teppich gesehen haben – aber von den jetzigen Gewinnern haben die Medien vor ihrer Krönung äußerst wenig berichtet.“

Steinmeier not allowed to speak at the Washington Monument

February 5, 2009 By in Habitudes Tags: 1 Comment

In a feeble attempt to copy then not-quite-yet-President Obama’s speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, currently campaigning in the US to become the next Chancellor of Germany, will not be allowed to hold an election rally at the Washington Monument.

 

 Smile for the camera!

 

Of all people, his colleague US Secretary (she hates that word) of State Hillary Clinton had to break it to Steinmeier that his idea was like totally peinlich (embarassing) and completely brain-dead already.

 

Not only would such an election rally be highly inappropriate in a foreign country if it isn’t Obama speaking in Germany, the secretary said, but not a soul would give a damn or bother to show up, either. “I mean, it’s not like anybody over here even knows who or what the hell you are or anything, Frank,” Hillary added. “Nothing personal.”

 

His English not being the best, Steinmeier took this to mean yes and said, beaming “I am pleased that Germany is now one of Washington‘s preferred partners again.”

 

„Der Besuch des Bundesaußenministers habe einen Neuanfang der deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen markiert.“

Trauma, trauma, trauma!

February 4, 2009 By in Habitudes Leave a comment

I think Bruce said it best, even if it was “drama” back then. Or maybe drama is the more appropriate word here doch (after all).

  

Afghanistaned out

 

Oh Brother. Non-combat troops not taking part in any, uh, combat and the latest spin is that the Bundeswehr guys stationed in Afghanistan can’t handle the strain of it all anymore and are post-traumatized from all the, well, road building and school building and making friends and having to be  “the good guys” all the time. And that’s why they’re dropping from PTBS like flies these days. PTBS is a new German sickness that has to do with post-traumatic strain or something. I guess it’s just too much of a strain to hang around the post all day, and that can be very traumatic.

 

Take this guy here. I don’t wish a suicide bomb attack on anybody, honestly, and he got through this without any physical injury, miraculously, thankfully, and more power to you. But what then? In Germany that means early retirement time with 45. No wonder Berlin refuses to send any troops to actually fight anywhere. They’d go broke in three weeks.

 

And speaking of Berlin, the timing of this new PTBS craze strikes me a bit funny (ha, ha, they had a show about it on ZDF the other night and it’s in all the papers today). Foreign Minister Steinmeier is visiting Hillary C. herself in Washington as you read this. If a change to Germany’s Afghanistan policy ever gets brought up, the President has threatened to do so in the past, Steinmeier can always point to this new development, I guess. Germany’s at the breaking point now, you see.

 

„Deutsche Soldaten mit Kriegstraumatisierung. Ihre Zahl wächst rasant.“