This Guy Is As American As Apfelkuchen

You know, apple pie?

Brooks

Good luck on Thursday, US-Amerikaner! Thanks for the link, Joe.

Though German by birth, Brooks’ American nationality has always been a significant part of his background. His father is from Illinois and was stationed in Germany when he served in the U.S. Army. Brooks is close with his father (who now lives in Switzerland) and traveled back to the United States to visit family during his youth.

Growing up in Berlin, Brooks was enrolled in the John F. Kennedy school for American children living in Germany. Until the sixth grade, he only spoke English in school and most of his childhood friends were American.

“Where’s The P?”

“Running down my leg.”

Water

Germany stomped Portugal 4-0 on Monday, and it seems as if the whole city of Berlin was watching intently. The chart above—from the city’s public water utility—shows water usage from 6 p.m. on the day of the game to 6 a.m. In two dramatic spikes, coming at halftime and at the close of the game, water consumption nearly doubled. Lots of pee was being held.

“A model of German scheduling efficiency. Meanwhile, the Spanish just haphazardly pissed away two entire matches.”

Maybe The Turks Could Build One Of These New-Fangled Airport Thingies In Berlin, Too

The construction of the world’s largest airport began on June 7 in Istanbul with a massive groundbreaking ceremony. When fully completed in 2018, the 10 billion-euro airport will be able to carry 150 million passengers a year, making it one of the world’s busiest airports.

Airport

Meanwhile, back in Germany…

Berlin’s disastrous airport project (groundbreaking so long ago nobody can remember anymore, at one time planned to open in June 2012 Anno Domini) was hit with another scandal after its technical director was suspended pending an investigation into alleged corruption. A “leading employee” responsible for awarding contracts during the on-going construction of the hopelessly-delayed Berlin Brandenburg airport (BER), is suspected of having demanded €500,000 bribes from a prospective contractor.

Berlin’s airport is already too small.

Berlin Convicts Unionize For Minimum Security

I mean for minimum wage. I kid you not. Here’s another one of those “I don’t make this stuff up, people” stories.

Union

Only in Berlin can prison inmates set up the the world’s first union for prisoners so they can campaign to get a minimum wage and a pension plan for convicts.

Hey guys, you forgot about the early retirement part. Hardy, har, har.

And what are they going to call your pension plan, anyways? Social High Security? Yuckity yuck.

Häftlinge der Justizvollzugsanstalt fordern einen Mindestlohn für Inhaftierte und eine Rentenversicherung

What Do You Mean BEFORE World War II?

“Given the horror of the Second World War where the guilt of course strongly lies with Germany and we take responsibility for the terror of National Socialism, we haven’t in Germany had the First World War so much in mind.”

WWI

One indication of Germans’ interest has been the success of the best-seller “The Sleepwalkers” by Australian Christopher Clark…

Experts and critics put the German success of the nearly 900-page title down to the book’s premise that Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire didn’t play any greater role than other countries in starting the war.

“People are delighted,” Historian Gerd Krumeich of Duesseldorf University said, sarcastically. “Among German intellectuals there was the conviction that everything led us to Hitler. Clark liberates us from all that by saying to us ‘you’re not more aggressive than the others’,” he said.

Only In Germany Can You Emasculate A Traffic Light

The city of Berlin may be poor but sexy, but it is not poor but sexy enough to not be able to scrape up enough needed tax euros to introduce a traffic light woman quota.

Quota

I don’t make this stuff up, people.

“Women need to be more present in the appearances of our capital’s streets,” Martina Matischok-Yesilcimen, Germany’s Social Democratic Party district leader who signed a recent motion (PDF) to introduce female walk signals, told Bloomberg News.

“We’re a diverse city, and that deserves to be seen.”

PS: And have a happy election day or something while you’re at it.

Let It Rot

It’s voting time  in Berlin again. This time it’s about whether or not good old abandoned Tempelhof Field should be developed or not (for housing, a library, etc.). You know, to actually maybe use it for something other than flying kites?

But as usual we have learned that this would be a terrible thing and that the field needs to be “saved” from such an awful fate, or at least that’s what opponents on the left insist. Urban Romantics need more room to move, especially if they are German ones (“the richest kind”) and being that saying no is so popular and comes so naturally to Germans in general and Berliners in particular, I am quite sure these opponents will win yet again.

Der stillgelegte Berliner Flughafen liegt brach. Nicht weil der Ort belasteter wäre als andere, sondern weil es leichter ist, mit dem “Luxus der Leere” zu kokettieren, als die Geschichte anzunehmen.

Das Tempelhofer-Feld ist eine Oase mitten in Berlin.

A Sound Panzer?

What will they tank of next?

The Sound Tank (or “Sound Panzer,” as Nowak refers to it in the video) is a reconfigured mini-dump truck that Nowak was able to transform into a colossal mobile soundsystem. Nowak designed the bass-bumping vehicle’s giant speaker wall with a hydraulic system, enabling him to raise it upright and point the 13 loudspeakers and three 18-inch subwoofers at any target.

Someone fired a gun next to Nowak’s ear as a young child, and as a result the artist lost the ability to hear high frequencies with his right ear. “That experience brought home to me the extent to which sound can shape reality,” Nowak muses in the video.

PS: For those interested in old school NSA stuff, there are some good shots of what is left of the old Teufelsberg facility in the video, too.