Category Archives: Hurt Feelings

When snowball fights turn bad

January 4, 2010 By in Habitudes, Hurt Feelings Tags: 1 Comment

I guess it’s officially a tradition now. For the second (or third?) New Year’s now, a group of abominable anarchist snowmen types (this time around 200 strong) have picked a snowball fight with the rest of the world in Leipzig at a place called Connewitzer Kreuz.

Then of course the snowball fight got out of control and expensive cars, buses, store windows and even cops got hurt. Other than all the feelings, I mean. Hey, you’ve got to do something down there. At Connewitzer Kreuz, I mean.
 
Auch Polizeikräfte wurden mit Schneebällen sowie mit Flaschen beworfen, wobei zwei Beamte verletzt wurden.

Now that we’re no longer the world’s top exporter…

August 20, 2009 By in Heconomy, Hurt Feelings Tags: 3 Comments

It’s finally okay for us to start buying Japanese cars too!

I'm trading this in for a Toyota too.

Or at least that’s what German Green Party whip Renate Künast seems to think. With calls for “Buy hybrid cars from Toyota!” and other provocative German-car-industry-bashing and name-calling name calls, Künast is hurting her fellow Germans’ German car loving feelings right and left. Or maybe she isn’t, hard to say for sure.

Personally, I’ve always felt that Germans secretly want to own Japanese cars (you rarely see one here, you know), it’s just that their families would disown them and the neighbors wouldn’t understand. Not that they do now, the neighbors, but still.

So, who knows? Maybe this offensive Green offensive might be the final straw to finally break the back of German Japanese car resistance and mobilize the already highly mobile German population to finally get out there and buy some Made in Japan already.

Or maybe it might just get the German car industry to finally budge just this little itsy bitty bit and start making more environmentally friendly automobiles. Nah.

„Wenn die Deutschen zu blöd sind, moderne Autos zu bauen, muss man den Leuten empfehlen, Toyota Prius zu kaufen.“

Palau can show you how

June 12, 2009 By in Habitudes, Hurt Feelings Tags: 1 Comment

As to be expected, Germany is now squirming with indecision (that means “no” in Germany, by the way) after the US has asked for the second time that it take in prisoners from Guantanamo.

This gives island hopping a whole new meaning.

 

The Germans say they need more details before they can make a decision (that means “hell no” in German, by the way). The Uighur Muslims in question here are wanted by China, you see, and the Germans wouldn’t ever want to offend China or anything because, well, that might hurt China’s feelings (that means “we’re only in it for the money” in German, by the way).

Meanwhile, Palau, a tiny little island country I had never heard of before, has expressed its willingness to help. The South Pacific atoll’s considerable resources will certainly come in handy here, as will its clear disregard for whatever China’s communist crowned heads might have to think about it.

“Obama, who said he aims to close Guantanamo by January next year, is struggling to find countries, particularly in Europe, willing to take released prisoners.”

The six months aren’t even up yet

May 29, 2009 By in Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Leave a comment

The six month honeymoon between Germany and President Obama, I mean. Well at least that’s how much time I gave them.

Can we just be friends?

There’s already a wide spectrum of wonderfully hurt feelings out there everywhere these days. Chancellor Merkel’s pampered days of back-rubs, barbecues and regularly held video conferences seem to have been replaced by what many see here as intentional slights coming from Washington. These seem to have begun sometime in, let me see, well, in January.

And then this Opel number yesterday. Sure it’s evil GM all over again, but they are not alone this time. At an all-night “Opel summit” rescue session held especially in the Chancellery (this needless to say big medicine for Merkel and Co. in an election year) only a few low-level reps from Treasury even bothered to show up. And the American government has a lot to say about the matter at the moment, as you well know. The “summit” was a mega flop, of course, and the Germans are clearly outraged at not having their concerns taken seriously, yet again.

Stay tuned and let’s see what doesn’t get taken seriously next. I’ll still give the honeymoon another month or two, though. I’m just that kind of an optimistic guy.

„Some in Berlin have suggested that Obama is still punishing Merkel for not allowing him to speak at the Brandenburg Gate when he passed through Berlin last summer in the midst of his rousing campaign for the presidency.“

Are you Putin me on?

January 18, 2009 By in Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: 2 Comments

So what do Germans do when their gas reserves are “unusually” low this winter because of the Russian cut-off of gas shipments through Ukraine? They do what anybody would do if they were in their position, and German. They give Vladimir Putin himself (some call him Gasputin, get it?) an 18-carat gold award entitled Saxony’s Order of Gratitude.

 

 Gasputin gonna gettcha!

 

Surprisingly though, the award, a gold carving of St George on horseback, has stirred some hurt feelings here and there because, well, it was also issued in Dresden, the place where Putin spent five years as a Soviet secret police officer back in the 1980s. Gasputin, who personally ordered the stoppage of Russian gas supplies to Europe last week, could not be reached for comment because of he didn’t want to be.

 

Germany is Gazprom’s biggest customer by far, by the way, and, unlike most of the other countries of central and south-eastern Europe, it continues to receive Russian gas via pipelines in the north that do not go through Ukraine. So if you think about it, there really is a lot to be thankful for, I guess.

 

I don’t make this stuff up people. I swear I don’t.

 

The award is supposed to be conferred on outstanding individuals who engage courageously for the present and future of Saxony and Germany.