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.”

Five-Year-Old-Sex-Education, German Style

April 26, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Educators, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Pedagogue, Politicians, Sex, Sex Education, SPD, Teachers 2 Comments

Or Berlin style, I should say.

German school children as young as five were given a sex-education book giving graphic advice on how to put on a condom and how to achieve orgasms.

According to Spiegel Online, the school in the Kreuzberg area of Berlin did not initially respond to parents’ complaints.

It was only when the local press got wind of the controversy and complaints were made to the city’s governing body, the Berlin Senate, that anything was done.

Damn. Berlin city government just can’t stop rocking these days.

“When it’s so good that it can’t get any better, Lisa and Lars have an orgasm.”

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!

Germans Want More CONTROL

April 19, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypochondria Tags: Angst, Berlin, Bureaucracy, Control, Germans, Germany, Get Smart, Humor, Internet, Politics, Satire 2 Comments

A commission convened by Germany’s parliament believes the Internet should be given a greater political priority in the country.

The commission has recommended that Germany needs a permanent Internet commissioner.

CONTROL good. KAOS (the Internet) bad.

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?

Guy Paid To Warn Germans About Too Much Video Surveillance Warns Germans About Too Much Video Surveillance

April 17, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Crime Fighting, Data Protection, Fear, Frank Zappa, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Paranoia, Satire, Video Surveillance 1 Comment

This guy and millions of other Germans, too (although they don’t get paid and therefore do it for free).

Datenschutzbeauftragten (data protection officers) are just that way over here, whether they’re Datenschutzbeauftragten or not.

It doesn’t matter that most of this video surveillance might be taking place for a reasonable reason (like crime prevention/fighting – think Boston Marathon), there is clearly a pathological fear of being watched in play over here (and not just over here, either). It’s a sign of the times, I guess. I know. It’s only paranoia (but I like it).

Oh. This suddenly reminded me of some old lyrics (sort of) to Frank Zappa’s Didja Get Any Onya?

…Years ago in Germany when I was a very small boy, zere was a lot of people standing around on ze corners asking questions: “Why are you standing on ze corner, acting ze way you act, looking like you look? WHY DO YOU LOOK THAT WAY?” And they ask me and I only would say: “I don’t . . . I don’t know, I’m just standing ’round ze corner waiting here . . . just in . . . in ze evening, and . . . and it’s so nice outside . . . the night is so nice . . . why . . . are you just asking these questions . . . ”

“Offenbar scheint eine notorische Neigung zu bestehen, Nachbarn zu überwachen. Und eine pathologische Befürchtung, überwacht zu werden.”

Ausgeliefert

April 15, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Amazon, ARD, Berlin, Distortion, Documentaries, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Hype, Journalism, Propaganda, Public-Service Broadcasters, Satire, State-Run TV 9 Comments

As in being at the mercy of.

Everbody agrees that big American hi-tech companies are fundamentally evil, right? Well they do here in Germany. In Germany’s state-run media, I should say (they actually call these channels “public-service broadcasters” here because that sounds better).

Anyways, the latest greatest twist to the anti-Google/Facebook/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon agitpop over at the ARD is breaking new ground (or maybe it isn’t) by unabashedly inventing witnesses and working/living conditions in one of Amazon’s German plants in a scarry documentary about that horrible company called Ausgeliefert – and all of this while using the generous funding provided by the compulsory charge every German household has to pay to support objective “public-service broadcasters” like these, of course.

Germans have to pay this charge now whether they even own a television or not, by the way. Hmmm. The ARD called their documentary Ausgeliefert (as in being at the mercy of Amazon), and that’s something every German knows about personally already. Being at the mercy of the ARD like they are, I mean.

Dort, gezeigt wurde das in einer angeblichen E-Mail, würden Menschen “abgefüttert wie die Schweine”, hieß es. Eine Behauptung, der CoCo von Anfang an widersprochen hat und nun vor Gericht zunächst Recht bekam. Der besagte Speiseraum existiere gar nicht, so das Unternehmen: “Das ist schlicht eine Erfindung der ARD-Journalisten, gegen die wir auch juristisch vorgehen.”

Der HR hat bereits vor der Gerichtsentscheidung bestätigt und eingestanden, dass der strittige Screenshot der E-Mail “fingiert” gewesen sei. Zudem musste der Hessische Rundfunk über seine Rechtsabteilung zugeben, dass auch eine im Film porträtierte polnische Leiharbeiterin namens Agnieszka Lewandowska “niemals als Leiharbeiterin bei Amazon beschäftigt war.”

Quatsch

April 14, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Corruption, Failure, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Klaus Wowereit, Mayors, Megalomania, Politics, Rumors, Satire, SPD Leave a comment

Nonsense, Berliner SPD politicians insist, when it comes to the persistent rumor around town these days that Klaus Wowereit has finally had enough and is willing to make everybody happy and resign already for cryin’ out load.

I would accept this explanation if it weren’t for the fact that they are also saying things like „absoluter Quatsch,“ „eine Quatsch-Debatte,“ „wirklich Quatsch“ and „auch das ist Quatsch,“ too.

Ja, eine „Quatsch-Debatte“ sei das, dass der Regierende Bürgermeister, wie es in der Boulevardzeitung BZ zu lesen war, keine Lust mehr aufs Regieren habe und angesichts mieser Umfragen und ebensolcher Aussichten plane, noch vor der Sommerpause seinen Rücktritt bekannt zu geben.

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.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Berlin