Lights Turned Out Last Night To Save Planet Earth Again

Damn. I always knew that I was ahead of my time when it came to saving our world as we know it, but up until last night’s “Earth Hour,” I honestly had no idea just how ahead of my time I was, I mean am.

I’ve been turning the lights out at night (when I go to bed) for as long as I can remember, and I’m as old as the hills.

So come on, people. Stop living in the dark and start turning off your lights now, too!

“Indem wir das Licht ausschalten, setzen wir ein Symbol für erneuerbare Energien weltweit.”

Artistic Productions Like This Cost Money You Know

We’re artists. So give us your, I mean our money.

This is what Germans get for a billion euros of arts subsidies each and every year. Jiminy Crickets. I don’t even want to think about what they’d be getting for less.

Please, Berlin. For the love of all that is holy freakin’ cow. Keep those subsidies coming.

“Der Kulturinfarkt: Von allem zu viel und überall das Gleiche.”

I Thought He’d Never Leave

Contrary to popular belief, Germans have a great sense of humor. What they’re not terribly good at, however, is imitating other comedy formats, something they insist on doing time and time and time again. Harald Schmidt is a prime example of this and – glory hallelujah let the saints be praised – they’ve finally gotten around to cancelling his show for good.

He has been Germany’s late night Tonight-Show-David-Letterman-Conan-O’Brien-like clone for many, way too many years and I’ve never understood why people here pretend that he is funny, but, then again, maybe that’s just me (uh, who else is it going to be?).

I’d give you an example of some of his highbrow, sophisticated humor (see above), but that would only make me feel more aggressive than I do already so go out there and dig up something on YouTube yourself if you absolutely positively have to and good luck with the translation because it won’t be worth it.

Geh mit Gott, Harald, aber geh.

It’s OK That Obama Got Caught Saying That

Der Spiegel rushes to tell us.

Because other politicians have been caught on mic saying bad things, too.

Only they were bad. So there.

“Nach meiner Wahl habe ich mehr Flexibilität.”

Gentrification Giants 1 – Subculture Vultures 0

An evicted group of about 20 subculture artist/activist types chained to the remains of Berlin’s graffiti-covered Tacheles alternative scene “living space” ruin is about to be forcibly dragged out kicking and screaming into German reality by black-clad gentrification special forces troops right here live on TV, I hope, but nobody can tell me when. Or on which channel or anything (maybe later in the Internetz?).

The group is defending “one of Berlin’s last bastions of alternative subculture, and are fighting eviction ahead of plans to develop it (the Tacheles) as an office and luxury apartments complex” and has to be dealt with accordingly, of course. After years of pussyfooting around with them first, I mean.

I would advise them not to let the door hit them on the way out but there are no doors at the Tacheles as they were surely used as firewood  long ago during one of those quaint, Stone Age let’s-not-freeze-to-death-tonight gettogethers so popular with artist types there and elsewhere here in Berlin.

Tacheles “is just the latest in a long line of public spaces that have been lost to private investors” and will surely be missed by all, myself not included.

Darko stands behind an iron gate, his bare chest daubed in red paint with the words “victim of bank.”

PS: This German subculture is not to be confused with this other German subculture here.

Germany In Grave Danger Again

It’s all over but the crying now. Or whining, if you prefer. German Wetter (weather) just keeps getting wetter!

A new study tells us that the number of “devastating” storms, heavy rains and other weather-related “natural catastrophes” has tripled in Germany since the 70s! Wow. Have there actually been three already?

Scarier still is that the climate model for the next thirty years (this in a country that can’t get the weather forecast for tomorrow right, mind you) calls for even more “heavy precipitation” that will most likely lead to – oh my God we’re all going to die – flooding! That’s right, the f-word. Oh the horror or something. And you thought it couldn’t happen here.

„Für die nächsten 30 Jahre rechnen Klimamodelle in Deutschland vor allem mit einer Zunahme der Sturmintensität und mit mehr Starkniederschlägen, die zu Überschwemmungen führen.“

Our Holy Hymnal Election Video, Amen

Wow. If anyone appreciates good propaganda, it’s these guys. The Der Spiegel clearly, if not accidently, got this one right: Obama, Amerikas Supermann.

“Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim directed it, Oscar winner Tom Hanks narrated it: Barack Obama’s election strategists have released a 17 minute promotional film. It stylizes the US President as a lonely hero who has single-handedly led his country out of crisis.”

Coming soon to a living room near you.

“Dieses Video ist für die Fans, und ihr wisst, wer sich angesprochen fühlen sollte.”

But At Least He Didn’t Say Nazi

Sigmar Gabriel, the head of the German Social Democratic Party and possible candidate for Chancellor of Germany, finally decided to break with that long and rather tiring SPD tradition of calling dissenters Nazis and tried out something new and refreshingly different instead; labelling the state of Israel an “Apartheid-Regime” on his Facebook page.

And to give the whole thing a little more umpf, he decided to publish this while visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories. Now he gets to pretend to defend his comparison of Israel to a racist state live and in color, right there before those terrible racists themselves (the Israelis, not the Palestinians). I tell ya, you got to have instinct in this business. Go SPD!

“I was just in Hebron. That is a lawless territory there for Palestinians. This is an apartheid regime, for which there is no justification.”

Can We Have Them Back On International Men’s Day?

Oh yeah, I forgot. There’s no such thing as International Men’s Day.

So much for tradition. The emasculated male staff at Germany’s Bild newspaper not only gave the women employees the day off on International Women’s Day this Thursday, they must have had too much to drink afterwards, too, because later that day the crazy bastards announced that the paper would be removing its trademark pictures of topless women from the front page.

How sweet or something. Sickening sweet. Now 28 years and 5000 topless women later we, I mean you, will be forced to turn to page three if you want to see them again (and we all know who they are). I feel so disgusted. And degraded.

So this is like progress marching on?

“I’m pleased that the pictures have finally disappeared from the front of the paper but the question is how long it will stay away. It was very degrading but we will have to wait and see whether this is permanent,” said Monika Lazar, women’s spokeswoman for the Green party.

Degrading, lady? Hell yeah, it’s degrading. Why degrade these women by putting them on page three?