Makes Sense To Me

August 25, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Crime, Fear, German, Germans, Germany, Gun control, Incompetence, Indecision, Leadership, Merkel, Obama, Syria Leave a comment

“US Experts Want More Leadership from Germany”

There hasn’t been any leadership in the US for about five years now. Somebody ought to start doing it one of these days.

Germans aren’t the only ones with interests at stake in next month’s election. The US is watching too — and Washington is hoping that, once the campaign is history, Germany will show more leadership on global issues.

“I think the assumption Americans have is that Germany should always step up and take responsibility commensurate with its weight in the world.”

PS: There was yet another anomaly in the GCG (Gun Control Germany) yesterday.

It’s Good To Be In A Crisis

August 23, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Bonds, Bunds, Economics, EU, Euro, Euro Crisis, Fear, Finance, Financial crisis, German, Germans, Germany, Merkel, Politics Leave a comment

Money is like water (or maybe like beer). It has to go somewhere. And 40 billion euros just made its way to Germany.

While fear has driven money away from Greece and Spain and co, making the government cost of repaying debt in these countries seem prohibitive, in Germany it has been quite different. Fear has boosted Germany coffers…

One thing is for sure, putting it in Greek bonds is risky. Spanish, Italian and Portuguese bonds don’t seem much safer either. But German bonds, in contrast, feel as safe as a safe house in a land with no crime. In fact so safe are German government bonds or bunds, perceived to be, that there have been times when the yields on some of them have been negative.

So actually, Germany has done rather well out of fear created by the euro crisis – or should that be the other way around – a euro crisis created by fear?

German Of The Day: Bausünde

August 18, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings Tags: Architecture, Berlin, Books, Buildings, Design, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Photography, Satire 1 Comment

Bausünden are building sins. Or building blunders? Or architectural abberations? Whatever. Berlin knows how. It’s just what they do here.

Photographer Turit Fröbe has now published an illustrated book about some of the most awful abberations, which must have been pretty difficult to compile. I mean, there is just too much to chose from here.

I love them all, by the way. The more sinful the better.

“Gute Bausünden zu finden, ist viel schwerer, als man denkt.”

There Are No Jokes

August 16, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Political Parties, Satire, Tourists Leave a comment

Well, actually there are. But in this case I’m not so sure.

The satirical political party “Die Partei” gathered Thursday at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to debut its latest campaign demand: eradicating tourists from the German capital.

The protest is a play on a debate in recent years in Berlin on how mass tourism threatens to transform the Brandenburg Gate, an important historical site in the city, into a a cheap Disneyland-like attraction.

Ob Ost, ob West, nieder mit der Touri-Pest!

Speaking Of Predictability

August 13, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Aging, Günter Grass, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Left Party, Oskar Lafontaine, Politics, Satire, Sommerloch, SPD, The Nobel Prize Leave a comment

Zum Sommer gehört auch Günter Grass (Günter Grass is also a part of sommer – predictable as he is, just like those other Sommerloch monsters mentioned below).

This time the grand old man of letters suddenly felt the urgent need to attack former SPD boss (and now over-the-hill ex-Left Party boss) Oskar Lafontaine as being a sleazy traitor to the grand old SPD’s grand old cause, whatever the grand old hell that was.

I can only assume that this little outburst must have something to do with the upcoming federal elections. The SPD has ruled out ever forming a coalition government with the Left Party (one of the very few things they have managed to do right), but this is mostly because the Left Party, like the SPD itself, is already extinct (nobody has broken the part about the SPD being extinct to the SPD yet, however). Grass, of course, is about as SPD and as extinct as you can get.

And it doesn’t really matter that Grass is actually right about Lafontaine here. All it points out to me is just how much he and Lafontaine have in common. Nobody out there takes them seriously anymore.

Günter Grass gehört zum Sommer wie das Reptil zum Badesee.

Right On Time

August 12, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Animals, Fake News, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Hype, Lotti, Monsters, News, Rituals, Satire, Sommerloch Leave a comment

This is definitely one of my favorite rituals over here. Like the reliable old groundhog back home, at least one weird animal sighting is guaranteed to take place in Germany during the so-called Sommerloch season.

This year’s winner is a terrifying alligator snapping turtle that actually attacked a young swimmer in Bavaria somewhere. Or maybe he didn’t. But still.

Like I said, this happens over here every year. Here are just a few examples. Who says that “news” isn’t a product that you can just turn on and off at will? Depending upon the demand, I mean. Which obviously seems to be pretty low at the moment (it’s a Sommerloch, like I said).

And all of these scary monsters have one other thing in common, too: They never get caught. Some böse Zungen (malicious tongues) even suggest that these creatures don’t even really, you know, exist?

The turtle, nicknamed Lotti, is likely to be some 40cm (16 inches) long and weigh at least 14kg (30 pounds).

Gulf States

August 8, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hi-tech, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Arms Sales, Berlin, Exports, German, Germans, Germany, Pacifism, Pacifists, Profit, Weapons Leave a comment

Beautiful German weapon sales of the week – past six months, I mean.

Because somebody has to admire them.

German Outrage Industry At Full Production

August 7, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Data Security, German, Germans, Germany, Intelligence, NSA, Political Parties, Politics, SPD Leave a comment

When it comes to Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service having forwarded massive amounts of data to the NSA – legally, I mean.

Take the good old SPD, for instance. They’re hollering the loudest at the moment. And this despite the fact that this particularly evil cooperation with US-Amerika is nothing new at all to them. So not new, in fact (an agreement made in the year 2002), that the SPD’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier was the guy wearing the responsibility hat when this agreement was made – the current governing coalition was not even in power.

But hey, you know how it is when a political party is out of power (in more ways than one) and crawling and scratching to get back into the game. In an outrage and all. In a panic, I mean.

“In my view, the opposition has only itself to blame. Pretending to be the firefighter just to be caught as the arsonist – you can’t play both of these roles with any credibility.”

Meat Me At The Barbeque

August 6, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Elections, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Humor, Meat, Paternalism, Political Parties, Politics, Satire, Vegetarians, Veggie Day 2 Comments

How smart was the Green Party’s election pledge to introduce a weekly vegetarian day? Oh, I dunno. But more than 85 percent of Germans eat meat daily or almost daily. So you do the math.

Massive web surveillance by the US? German voters seem to have lost interest. The euro crisis? Boring. Comprehensive minimum wage? Zzzzzz. It has been a somnolent election season thus far. At least until this week. Suddenly, the German electorate is up in arms, furious with a proposal made by the Green Party which, many fear, could violate one of their most cherished rights: that of eating sausage whenever they want.

Veggie Day Will Just Be The Start

August 5, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Cuisine, Elections, Food, German, Germans, Germany, Green Shirts, Greens, Humor, Ideology, Political correctness, Satire, Vegetarians, Veggie Day 4 Comments

If the Greens get their way, I mean.

Although most German works canteens (the place where most working Germans take in their main meal of the day) offer one vegetarian day per week voluntarily already, this is clearly not enough for certain of the more nervous elements pacing the floors at Green Shirt Campaign Headquarters. A federal election is coming up people, so it’s time for a little agitprop sommertime theater already (agitprop Sommerloch theater?).

Once in absolute control – uh, I mean after the coming election in September – the Greens apparantly plan to introduce legislation indroducing “Veggie Day” for the good of all of us, animals included, whether we like our veggies or not (most animals hate them). Like how Organic Bourgeois of them is that?

You see, it’s not like the Greens are into Bevormundung or anything (paternalism, condescension, tutelage, bureaucratic PC dictatorship, etc.). It’s just that they’re into Bevormundung.

One guy from the FDP put it well: “What’s next? Jute Shopping Bag Day? Bike Day? Green Shirt Day?”

“Man muss nicht jeden Tag zwei Burger essen.”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: High Art