The Richard Wagner Bicentennial Jubilee Fun Time Celebration Bash Is Well Underway

April 28, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Anti-Semitism, Berlin, Composers, German, Germans, Germany, Hitler, Music, Nazis, Richard Wagner 2 Comments

But the Partystimmung (party atmosphere) can be a little problematic at times.

How do you celebrate the bicentenary of a great composer who also happened to be an anti-Semite, who posthumously inspired Hitler, and whose works featured prominently in the cultural life of the Third Reich?

That’s easy, really. You do what you’ve got to do with Wagner (if you’re a Wagner fan or a German unable to ignore him). As Friedrich Nietzsche said 125 years ago: “The Germans have cooked up a Wagner whom they can honor. And they are thankful for being able to misunderstand him.”

And as Woody Allen said quite some time later: “I just can’t listen to any more Wagner, you know…I’m starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.”

“Die Deutschen haben sich einen Wagner zurechtgemacht, den sie verehren können: … sie sind damit dankbar, dass sie missverstehn.”

This Was Not Planned So It Cannot Be Happening

April 25, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Energy, Energy Turnaround, Environment, Fracking, Gas, German, Germans, Germany, Green Shirts, Greens, Shale Gas, Technology Leave a comment

Or will not be happening, I should say.

As you know, Germany is green. And Germans are greener than green. Why, Germans are so green that Jamaicans want to roll them up and smoke them.

And Germans also like sticking to “the plan,” too (think Stalingrad). So they do not, I repeat do not appreciate it when, as in this case, their ambitious environmental plans get disturbed by unforseen technological developments that were not considered in the original plan and therefore start turning the whole Schlamassel (mess) into a really, really big and annoying, well, Schlamassel (think Stalingrad again).

It goes like this: “Ambitious environmental goals are far less meaningful if the economy withers in achieving them.” So when something really tempting comes along like shale gas drilling (hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”), a technology that could give Germany access to enough reserves to feed natural gas demand for 20 years, then that gets not-so-thoroughly-green people (yes, there still are a few specimens left) to thinking, plan or not.

So there we have it. And that’s the end of it (ask any German Green Shirt). Fracking can’t happen here. It is ideologically inadmissable. Fracking is something that those crazy Americans and their evil multi-national oil companies do, not us (multi-national oil companies are always American, by the way – don’t ask). Nope, fracking can never happen here. Never in a million years. Not this year anyway.

“We are sitting on Swiss cheese. The risks are just too high.”

Where’s The Enlightenment When You Need It?

April 24, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Humor, Jewish Museum Berlin, Jews, Moses Mendelssohn, Quotas, Regulation, Satire, Taxation, The Enlightenment, The Green Shirts 4 Comments

This is German regulation madness at its best. Or, to be fair, Berliner Green Shirt regulation madness at its best.

The city district council of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (the Greens) is currently causing not just a little bewilderment by refusing to name the square in front of Berlin’s Jewish Museum after Moses Mendelssohn, the German Jewish Enlightenment philosopher. No, not because they’re anti-Semites (at least not openly). It’s because Mendelssohn was not a woman.

You see, the district parliament decided back in 2005 (Greens and SPD) that 50 percent of the district’s streets and squares had to be named after women. Until that goal is reached, no new streets or squares will be allowed to be named after men, except in exceptional cases. Which this one isn’t, I guess.

This is about as small-minded as you can get, of course, and it fits perfectly with mainstream Green ideology, I find, in that nothing the Greens ever do or say can ever be allowed to be labelled as being small-minded or petit bourgeois in any way. But of course practically everything they do, well, is.

Die kleingeistige Posse spielt vor der Tür des weltweit bekannten Jüdischen Museums. Die Hauptakteure hocken in der mit Abstand stärksten Fraktion des Bezirks: Es sind die Grünen. Sie schämen sich nicht, „das leider falsche Geschlecht“ Mendelssohns in einem Satz mit dem „Projekt Unisextoiletten“ abzuhandeln.

PS: Speaking of Berlin city government in action: Oh boy! The new tourist tax is here! The new tourist tax is here!

Justin Bieber To Spank His Monkey

April 23, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Customs, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Immigration, Justin Bieber, Leave It to Beaver, Mally the Monkey, Munich, Satire 1 Comment

For not having any papers on him after landing in Munich in March. Or he sure would like to spank him now, I bet.

The popular god-awful and astoundingly annoying suckling superstar clearly had no idea that German customs authorities don’t cut slack for anybody, not even for monkeys – or a guy who’s last name means “beaver” in German.

His dumbass animal of a monkey “Mally” is still under animal shelter arrest and won’t be going anywhere until Bieber or an actual grownup get in touch with the German customs authorities directly (that is the custom here) and he’s running out of time fast.

This gives Leave It to Beaver a whole new meaning, if you ask me. Whether he spanks his monkey or not.

“Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver.”

Germany Honestly Not Seeking Hegemony In Europe I Swear

April 22, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Atavism, Economics, EU, Euro, Euro Crisis, Euro Zone, German, Germans, Germany, Hegemony, Humor, Satire, World Domination Leave a comment

German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected again today claims that her country was seeking hegemony in the European Union.

“We already are the largest economy in Europe,” she might have said. “Like, by a long shot. So why on earth would we want to do that? All we want to do is just keep exercising our predominant influence over all those other namby-pamby nations around us and with time, through peaceful terms and non-aggression, achieve world, I mean, total European domination.”

“Germany has a sometimes complicated role,” she actually said. “Because we are the largest economy – we are not the richest, but we are the largest. Therefore Germany will only act together with the others – hegemony is totally foreign to me.”

Let There Be Light

April 18, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Higher Education, History, Humor Tags: Aerial Photography, Architecture, Berlin, Buildings, East Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire, Swastikas, West Berlin 1 Comment

Or at least a little more of it in the eastern half of town, I mean.

“Berlin at night. Amazingly, I think the light bulbs still show the East/West division from orbit.”

PS: Speaking of interesting aerial shots of Berlin…

OK, OK. This is in San Diego. But still.

There actually is one of these in Berlin, I’m told. I just couldn’t find it right now. Anybody know where?

Gold-obsessed German Smuggler Drops Plans To Rob Fort Knox

April 13, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: 007, Bailouts, Berlin, Euro Crisis, Euro Zone, Films, German, Germans, Germany, Gold, Goldfinger, Greece, Humor, Satire, Tax evasion 2 Comments

But gets caught at Athens International Airport attempting to smuggle half a ton of gold and silver out of Greece to Germany instead.

Wait a second. Aren’t the Germans the ones who are supposed to be smuggling their gold (as in Geld) into Greece these days?

The man was trying to board a Lufthansa flight back to Germany when the airline uncovered nearly 1,000 lbs. of what the BBC calls silver “tablets” in a cargo container.

Germans Tired Of Being Cast As The Euro Zone’s Scapegoats

April 11, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hate, Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Cyprus, Euro Crisis, Euro Zone, German, Germans, Germany, Greece, Hitler, Humor, Leadership, Merkel, Nazis, Power, Satire, Scapegoats 1 Comment

But once they take a nap and rest a little bit, they won’t be so tired anymore.

Sometimes Germany was too weak, sometimes too strong. Or, as Henry Kissinger, a former American secretary of state, put it, referring to Germany just after unification in 1871, it was “too big for Europe, but too small for the world”. Today, Mr Simms (Cambridge University) argues, “it sits uneasily at the heart of an EU that was conceived largely to constrain German power but which has served instead to increase it, and whose design flaws have unintentionally deprived many other Europeans of sovereignty.”

The question is whether Germany can use its power by unapologetically leading. Given Germany’s past, its political culture militates against even trying.

“It’s nice to go to a conference of ‘young leaders’, but you don’t want a conference of ‘junge Führer’.”

Hitler Diaries’ Reporter Wants Real Fakes Back Not Fake Fake Ones

April 10, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, High Art, History, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax) Tags: Berlin, Der Stern, Forgeries, German, Germans, Germany, Hitler Diaries, Humor, Journalism, Movies, Satire, Schtonk! Leave a comment

They may be a crude forgery, Gerd Heidemann seems to be saying, but they’re my crude forgery (although the actual shabby work was done be a certain Konrad Kujau).

It’s been ten years now and apparently they’re his property again, or so his interpretation of the original contract, and if he could get them back from the Stern’s publisher, Gruner & Jahr, Heidemann would “make them available to Germany’s national archive,” thus, well, gee, I dunno what the hell for, either.

“I’ve really got to have a serious talk with Eva. She thinks that a man who leads Germany can take as much time as he wants for private matters.”

Rich Germans Actually The Euro Zone Po Folks

April 9, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Bailouts, Berlin, Cyprus, Economy, EU, Euro Crisis, Euro Zone, European Union, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire, Savings, Wealth 2 Comments

As recently reported, rich Germans have suddenly and inexplicably become the poor men of Europe, relatively speaking.

According to the latest ECB Vermögensstudie (wealth study), the Cypriots, of all people, are among the richest citizens in the euro zone. Germans, on the other hand, have come in at last place.

Wait a second. Wasn’t there something recently about Cyprus striking a 10-billion euro bailout deal with the European Union? I must have got that wrong (or the Cypriots certainly got that right).

Ausgerechnet die Zyprer gehören zu den reichsten Bürgern der Euro-Zone, Deutschland steht am Ende der Rangliste.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Category Archives: Humor