Wo ist das Krokodil?
Category Archives: Home Cooking
The German Sommerloch
It’s here (the German “summer hole“). So get used to it. And remember: If it wasn’t for slow news (see yesterday’s post), we wouldn’t have no news at all.
Or as one paper here put it: “Exotic Animals in a Summer Loch Ness.”
Hey, news is a product, folks. And production is down.
In the United States the period is referred to prosaically as the slow news season.
Next Imaginary Crocodile Sighting Underway
Germans are totally tierlieb (fond of animals). Especially when they are the exotic and preferably dangerous kind of Tier they regularly think they see but never manage to find lurking about in the German Wildnis (wilderness).
This time it’s another crocodile, somewhere near Regensburg (with an emphasis on the crock here, folks). A guy out on a walk and “a lady on an air mattress” both saw the horrible creature so we can be sure that this time the danger is clear and present.
These are obligatory annual sightings, by the way. I don’t know why that it, but you have to have at least one here every summer. It has to do with the infamous German Sommerloch (which is just about to start), I think, but that’s another story.
Die Polizei in Bayern hat mit Schlauchbooten, Tauchern und sogar einem Hubschrauber nach einem Krokodil in einem Badesee gesucht – bisher erfolglos.
The Protective Hand
You’ve heard of the invisible hand being everywhere in the free market system, right? Well if you’re a left-wing terrorist in Germany you can count on having a protective hand taking care of you, too. When it comes to the German justice system, I mean.
Four years for being an accessory to murder? Deduct the trial time, which they already have, and RAF terrorist Verena Becker will be out on the street in no time (the safe German street, now that the RAF isn’t active there anymore).
What can I say? The German judicial system has ein Herz für linke Terroristen (left-wing terrorists). They are the ones who are always the Opfer (the victims). The system made them that way or something. That’s why this article confirms “that the sentence was relatively light, but that’s a good thing.” Why that’s a good thing is still not clear to me. But I’m not German.
Germany’s Federal Interior Ministry insists that portions of the BfV files on Becker will remain confidential, as will passages in the documents related to when she was pardoned in 1989 by then German President Richard von Weizsäcker. All of this incomprehensible secretiveness has only contributed to fostering more speculation.
Michael Buback, the son of the murdered prosecutor, added some emotional moments to the trial. In a statement before the court, the chemistry professor from Göttingen admitted to feeling “attacked, insulted and disparaged” by federal prosecutors. What’s more, he accused investigators of having held a “protective hand” over Becker.
Inferiority Superiority Complex
North, south. Inferiority, superiority. It’s all the same to me.
Germans export more to their European partners than they consume, benefiting from this asymmetrical situation even as they expect everyone else to be exporters and savers like them.
You Gotta Have Swine
And the Germans didn’t have much swine last night when Italy trounced them in the Euro 2012 semi-finals 2:1.
Having pig (Schwein haben) means to have a stroke of luck, you see. And Emma the pig up there (no relation to Arnold Ziffel) knew it all along, if you can beleive that. Which I don’t.
In the race to emulate Paul the Octopus’ World Cup predicting perfection of two years ago, Emma the Mangalitsa pig from Freiburg, Germany, vaulted into sole possession of the lead on Thursday evening.
Circumcision Decision Causing Division
And may need a revision.
Leaders of Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities have criticized a court ruling they fear could make circumcision a punishable offense in the country.
Talk about having short vision.
German courts need more tight supervision.
There was no provision for all the derision now caused by that little incision.
“This is an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the right to self-determination of religious communities.”
Are We Having A European Lifestyle Yet?
Is this the end of “the European way of life” as we know it?
European leaders have been muddling through instead of properly tackling the debt crisis. Now it threatens the very foundations of the European Union and could destroy a lifestyle that millions of Europeans take for granted.
Funny. I thought taking things for granted was what the European lifestyle was all about.
“We need fiscal discipline because we have a debt problem… No euro bonds as long as I live.”
Our Debt Still Doesn’t Stink
German government debt keeps climbing relentlessly higher and reached an all-time high during the first three months of this year. The federal, state and local governments then reached a debt to the tune of 2 trillion euros.
That was 2.1 percent or 42.3 billion euros higher (deeper?) than in the previous year’s quarter, reported the Federal Office of Statistics in Wiesbaden on Monday.
Now if only Greece and Co. could learn to control their government spending like the Germans do. Oh, wait. They already have. Or do. Or whatever.
Deutschlands Staatsschulden auf Rekordhoch gestiegen
More Naked Art
Asking for naked volunteers in Germany is kind of like asking if anybody is interested in having some Freibier (free beer). Especially when the nakedness has to do with uplifting Kunst and culture and crap like that. Not to mention, heaven forbid, Richard Wagner himself.
That’s why American photographer Spencer Tunick shamelessly exploited this German schamelessness and painted a whole heap of naked Germans red and gold for his art installation interpretation thingy of scenes from the opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen.”
Art for art’s sake or something. Let’s get nekkid. Boy, I’m arted out for this week. EntARTet, so-to-speak.
Tunick was invited to create the work by the Bavarian State Opera.
