“The Barbie Dreamhouse is the expression of a conventional role model that isn’t OK.”
Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration.
The intense negative reactions to the Cyprus bailout program, including the constant comparisons made to Germany’s Nazi past, appear to have taken many Germans by complete surprise. Most simply cannot understand why people do not like them just because they are big and strong.
Germany has contributed more than 220 billion euros, or $280 billion, pledged through loans and financial support packages for Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, all negotiated with those countries’ euro zone partners, for instance. And yet unfair allegations continue to be made.
Nor were Germans alone in insisting on reforms from those European partners seeking financial assistance. The Netherlands, Finland and Austria are frequently mentioned as countries that hold a similar position, yet Germany always ends up being the target of anger.
“We just don’t get it,” one German politician was quoted as saying. “It’s as if they don’t like us just because we are big and strong, because of our affluence and our power. It’s as if they resent our very existence because of this and because of the new soft hegemony we are now practising in Europe. They feel that we are materialistic, hedonistic, egotistical and shallow. I don’t know, in the end they’re just envious and jealous.”
“I mean,” he then continued. “It’s not is if we were some sinister dominating powerhouse like the USA or anything, spreading its corruptive capitalistic influence too widely around the globe the way it does, smothering the rest of us with it’s commercial and materialistic view of life and the world. We’re just well-intentioned Germans, remember?”
“Germany acts in solidarity so that crisis countries will have a perspective in the future. I wish that those people at the top — the president of the E.U. Commission and the E.U. president — would defend Germans against unfair allegations.”
The Bundesbank (Germany’s central bank) has just published a study showing that the average German household is a full three times less wealthy than its crisis-hit Spanish or Italian counterparts.
Whereas the median Spanish household has net wealth of €178,000, the equivalent in Germany is €51,000.
“These German households are downright poor,” a spokesman for the Bundesbank said after presenting the study. “Relatively speaking, I mean. In fact they are so poor that they have to eat cereal with a fork just to save milk.”
“Poor? These households are so poor they only have two TV channels: On and off.”
“We’re talking poor here, folks. These households are so poor that the ducks throw bread at them.”
Germany’s relatively low level of home ownership is one of the principal reasons suggested for the wealth disparity.
But were afraid to ask.
A Rabbi is asked why Jews always answer a question with another question. “Why not?” he replies.
“Für mich gilt jeder als Jude, der meschugge genug ist, sich selbst einen zu nennen.”
Ja zum Klimawandel? Yes to climate change? I guess I just don’t get this Earth Hour thing. I thought everybody was supposed to be against climate change.
But that’s going to be Hamburg’s motto this Sunday when the Hamburgers turn off their lights for an hour for, uh, the Earth or something. Man oh man. Berlin could never take part in an event like this. Berliners would worry too much that the power wouldn’t switch back on again once the hour was up.
And I really don’t see what all this organizational fuss is all about, either. With the German power grid in the condition it is in these days, there are bound to be all kinds of Earth hours right around the corner here before too long.
Unter dem Motto “Ja zum Klimawandel!” nehmen auch wieder das Hamburger Rathaus und die fünf Hauptkirchen teil, um ein Signal zu setzen, wie wichtig der Klimaschutz ist und dass den Beteiligten die Erde nicht egal ist.
Or a little media coverage, at least. Damn. Another demo party freak show happening thingy I somehow managed to miss.
Hasselhoff said on Sunday that a real estate developer’s plans to move part of the wall was “like tearing down an Indian burial ground” because of the great historical importance it had.
Left party and Green politicians have expressed outrage upon learning that Ilse Aigner (CSU), Germany’s Minister of Consumer Protection, has arranged that a so-called “crucifix” be hung on the wall of her ministry’s visitors’ room.
“Not only is this fauxpas a flagrant breach of the much cherished separation of church and state,” the visiting Green politician is said to have said upon discovering the cross, his horrible, unearthly scream cutting through the night as smoke began spurting from his pallid flesh right before the ghastly green creature twisted away in horror and half dove, half fell through the ministry’s crashing window, “But it also insults our secular values and fundamental way of living dead life.”
Frau Aigner has expressed openness with regard to removing the offensive Christian object but insists that she will not budge an inch should it come to further demands to remove the hundreds of garlic cloves or that bucket of holy water she holds ready at all times underneath her desk.
Hintergrund ist offenbar eine Beschwerde aus den Reihen einer Besuchergruppe der hessischen Grünen. Zwei Teilnehmerinnen drückten demnach in einem Brief an die Ministerin ihre “Verwunderung” darüber aus, dass in dem Besucherraum ein “den christlichen Glauben symbolisierendes Kreuz aufgehängt war”.
Hey, nobody else wanted the job.
Hartmut Mehdorn, former Deutsche Bahn boss, will now be taking over the unbelievable mess some here refer to as Berlin’s international airport or BER. I mean, it’s not really an airport, of course. It’s an urban myth maybe, or a spooky ghost town place or a money-guzzling black hole or maybe even all three of those things, but it ain’t no airport.
Anyways, Mehdorn turned things around by being a tough restructurer at the Deutsche Bahn and Air Berlin. You know, he axed a lot of stuff, people included (that’s why nobody likes him in Germany – there can never be any “losers” here). But how can you be a tough restructurer for something that doesn’t have any structure? Chaos theory is chaos theory and what’s more chaotic than the non-existent Berlin Internatinal Airport? Or did I miss something again and is it in a parallel universe we just haven’t been able to reach yet?
Good luck or something.
“Sie haben mich geholt, jetzt müssen sie mich auch aushalten.”
OK, OK. The German Pope dude actually was a Pope but he did that typical German Frührente (early retirement) thing that Popes don’t normally do so technically speaking you could be a real devil advocating jerk if you wanted to be and claim that the guy never was a real Pope in the first place (and no, of course I’m not Catholic and yes, I clearly don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about here – except for that Frührente part).
As for the Cardinal dude, I think he looked rather convincing while hanging out with several unsuspecting eminences in Rome the other day. Except for the sneakers he was wearing, maybe. And his crucifix, which was too short, or so I’m told. And his sash turned out to be just a purple scarf. But still. The Cardinal question here is, well, is not having a life something you can actually make your living at?
He was thrown out by the Swiss Guard after someone noticed his crucifix was too short and his sash was just a purple scarf.
And the German communities they will soon be leaving don’t like it one little bit. It has to do with Kaufkraft (spending power) or something.
Strange, isn’t it? Germans are always the first to demand the quickest possible withdrawal timetable for “foreign” troops (NATO, ISAF, etc.) taking part in peacekeeping operations elsewhere in the world, but then start whining once the foreign peacekeepers in Germany finally have enough already and decide to leave themselves – after nearly seventy years.
Peace is hell.
“Da sind die Auswirkungen nur schwer abzuschätzen.”
Observing Hermann 