Let’s Celebrate

May 24, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, History Tags: 1949, Constitution, Democracy, German, Germans, Germany Leave a comment

Having democracy shoved down our throats!

You’ve come a long way, Germany. In those few short years (70) you have now become the Lehrmeister (schoolmaster) in all things democratic. Or at least you sure do come over that way. We couldn’t have done it without you. Or vice versa. Or whatever.

This month, a united democratic Germany marks the 70th anniversary of its constitution: the Grundgesetz, or Basic Law. The lengthy document—one version of the English text runs 135 printed pages—was composed under Allied supervision in 1948 and 1949. The final text was completed May 8, 1949; approved by the British, French, and U.S. occupying authorities on May 12, 1949; and entered into effect May 23, 1949. Its first article begins, “Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.”

“Why don’t you sing Deutschland uber alles?”

What A Horrifying Thought

May 23, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hostility, Hurt Feelings Tags: AfD, EU, EU-scepticism, European elections, European Parliament, Euroscepticism, France, Germany, Italy, Matteo Salvini, Netherlands 1 Comment

I shudder to think of what could happen to Europe after this weekend’s big European Parliament elections. I mean, should the people actually choose to vote for parties that would, gulp, “elevate the sovereignty and economic interests of individual member-states over the collective interests of the EU.”

The horror.

Salvini, who’s framed himself the de facto leader of this coalition, has embraced the slogan “Towards a Common Sense Europe.” Besides Le Pen’s National Rally and Wilders’s Party for Freedom, other far-right parties have joined the cause, including Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) and Austria’s (currently scandal plagued) Freedom Party. Broadly, these leaders want to curtail immigration. They may want to reorient the EU’s priorities on the global stage, too.

But, mostly, they want to elevate the sovereignty and economic interests of individual member-states over the collective interests of the EU.

“There are no extremists, racists, or fascists in this square. Here you won’t find the far-right, but the politics of good sense. The extremists are those who have governed Europe for the past 20 years.”

PS: Isn’t that picture they chose to use for the article brilliant? No suggestive images here, folks.

“Progress has been limited…”

May 14, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Consumers, Electricity, Energy, Energy Turnaround, German, Germans, Germany, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy Leave a comment

Oh, I dunno. Depends upon how you look at it.

In 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the country was turning away from nuclear energy in favor of a renewable future. Since then, however, progress has been limited. Berlin has wasted billions of euros and resistance is mounting…

But there’s been plenty of change here, although I wouldn’t call it progress. Lots of people can’t afford to pay their power bills in Germany – the country with the highest energy costs for consumers in Europe. Could there possibly be a connection to the “energy turnaround” here?

More than 340,000 electricity customers across Germany have their power cut off each year for failing to pay bills. A new proposal from one political party aims to change this.

Shame On Him!

May 10, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Allies, Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, EU, Europe, German, Germans, Germany, NATO, Relationships, USA Leave a comment

Trump treats Germany like ‘America’s worst ally.’

Especially because, well, like, you know… They are.

North Korea, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela: America currently has disputes with a lot of countries. Europeans, meanwhile, have done quite well at keeping their heads down. A US-EU trade truce is still holding. And Nato’s 70th anniversary festivities in Washington came and went in early April without tweet fireworks from the president threatening US withdrawal.

There was one notable exception to this queasy peace, however: Germany.

At a think-tank event during the Nato celebrations, vice-president Mike Pence castigated Germany for its inadequate defence spending and for being a “captive of Russia”. A few weeks later, presidential daughter-in-law Lara Trump opined on Fox Business that Angela Merkel’s welcome of refugees in 2015 had been Germany’s “downfall” and “one of the worst things to ever happen” to the country.

Germany is, in fact, having a bit of a moment in the roiling imagination of the Trumpian nationalist right. It has been denounced as “selfish” and “America’s worst ally” by Ted Bromund, a scholar at the Heritage Foundation. Jakub Grygiel, until last year a member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, called it “a source of fear and resentment”. And Michael Anton, a former senior White House adviser for strategic communications, just published an essay on the “Trump Doctrine” which contends that the EU is “a fraud” and Germany “treats the EU as a front organisation”…

Like I said. All of this is outrageous. And, well, I dunno, like, how should I put it? True. It’s actually much worse than all of that but nobody wants to hear it so, shame on you, President Trump!

German Of The Day: Mangelhaft

April 25, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Energy, Germany, Imports, Language, Oil, Pipelines, Poland, Russia Leave a comment

That means deficient. As in the deficient quality of the oil being imported to Europe via a Russian pipeline – this import having now been suspended by Poland?

That means Germany can’t get the oil, either. It’s not like Germany’s dependency on Russian gas and oil is deficient, however. That’s as high a quality dependency as you can get.

Germany and Poland have suspended imports of Russian oil amid contamination concerns, prompting a rare crisis over supply from the world’s second-largest exporter.

The sudden suspension of imports from the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline, which runs from Russia via Belarus to central Europe, risks starving major European refineries of their major source of crude.

Händler großer Ölkonzerne, die Raffinerien in Deutschland betreiben, bestätigten dies: Die Versorgung über die noch von der Sowjetunion gebauten “Druschba”, auf Deutsch “Freundschaft”, sei gestoppt.

German Of The Day: Bildungsurlaub

April 17, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Berlin, Court Rulings, Courts, Education, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Profession, Training, Vocational Training, Work, Yoga Leave a comment

That means educational or vocational training leave. You know, like that yoga course you took for your job?

What? Your boss freaked out at the suggestion? Well, everybody does it here in Berlin. Yoga to go with the times, people.

A yoga course can be considered vocational training, a Berlin court has ruled, paving the way to doing the “Downward-facing Dog” or “Greet the Sun” on company time in Germany’s capital.

The state labour court for Berlin-Brandenburg has ruled a worker has the right to paid leave so they can attend a five-day adult education course entitled “Yoga I – successful and relaxed at work with yoga and meditation”.

The judge ruled that under Berlin’s Educational Leave Act, even a yoga course fulfills the far-reaching criteria of “professional development” which would promote an individual’s “adaptability and self-assertion”.

“Yoga I – erfolgreich und entspannt im Beruf mit Yoga und Meditation.”

Kings of Kallstadt

April 3, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humility, Humor Tags: Documentaries, Donald Trump, Films, Germany Leave a comment

President Trump Keeps Falsely Saying His Father Was Born In Germany.

It’s an honest mistake, I guess. If he never saw this German documentary called “Kings of Kallstadt,” I mean. His grandfather – as did H. J. Heinz of the famous ketchup company – both stemmed from this same small German town in the Rhineland. The film is in German, of course, but even if you don’t speak German it gets interesting around minute 48.

What’s also interesting about the film, I think, is that this takes place shortly before Donald Trump ran for President and the civil tone of the whole undertaking is breathtaking. Before all the poison that came out later, I mean. The film is a bit of an accident, in other words.

“He was born in a very wonderful place in Germany.”

German Of The Day: Unsinn

March 10, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Academia, Academics, Gender, Gender-Neutral, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Political correctness, Thought Control, Universities Leave a comment

That means nonsense.

German academics and authors call for end to ‘gender nonsense‘ – .Open letter hits back at demand for more gender-neutral nouns.

A group of German authors, comedians and academics have added fuel to the flames of an increasingly bad-tempered culture war over language bias by calling for a fightback against “ridiculous linguistic constructions” designed to make German more gender-neutral.

“And no one has been bothered by the fact that everything feminine has for 1,000 years been based on the [neuter] word das Weib.”

German Of The Day: Gaga

March 7, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings Tags: Gender, Gender-inclusive Language, German, Germans, Germany, International Women's Day, Language, Spelling Leave a comment

That means gaga.

And that’s what this lady, State Secretary Dorothee Bär (CSU), thinks about the new spelling rules for gender-inclusive language now proposed for German. This is because these spelling rules are gaga, of course, just like everything else having to do with today’s gender-fluid non-binary macro-trend terrorist fashion craze. It’s just as gaga as not being allowed to call it gaga, which she did anyway. And thanks so much for that, ma’am.

She says it “rapes and butchers” the German language, which, of course, it does. But I’m not sure she understands that that is precisely the intention. That is the intention, isn’t it? Just look what it’s doing to our language.

One little New German spelling example: What used to be a department head – Abteilungsleiter (male) or Abteilungsleiterin (female) – will now be an Abteilungsleiter*innen. I’m not sure how the * pronounced but what’s that matter at this point?

“Ich finde das alles total gaga, sowohl das Binnen-I als auch das Gender-Sternchen.”

German Of The Day: Umerziehen

February 19, 2019 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hostility, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: ARD, Big Brother, Channel One, Fake News, Journalists, Language, Lying Press, Media, Media Bias, News, State Control, State TV, Taxation, TV 2 Comments

That means re-educate.

And that’s what the “framing” expert at Germany state TV “Channel One” (ARD) has advised its employees to do. Viewers are in dire need of re-education.

Her secret “framing manual” indicates that the ARD is at war with its critics and private television channels alike, disruptive elements who refer to the ARD as “state TV,” criticize “compulsory fees” (they’re not compulsory, they’re a show of solidarity!) and “question the ARD’s relevance.” Gee, I guess she means me, too.

These disruptive elements don’t understand that the ARD is “guided by moral principles” and its own “moral necessity for social interaction” and not, like them, motivated by profit. The ARD doesn’t have to be motivated by profit, people. All Germans get taxed for this state supported media bias whether they’re viewers or not.

Isn’t that a nice smirk? Big Sister is watching. She wants you all to keep on watching, that is.

Die Arbeit der ARD, so heißt es, sei „von moralischen Prinzipien getragen“, überzeugt von der eigenen „moralischen Notwendigkeit für das gesellschaftliche Miteinander“ – während die „medienkapitalistischen Heuschrecken“ des Privat-TV nur dem Profit dienen würden.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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