Tag Archives: Berlin

The German Petty Bourgeoisie At Its/Their Best

September 13, 2012 By in Habitudes, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

One thing that all Germans have in common is their absolute disgust for all things kleinbürgerlich (petty bourgeois). You know; being small-minded, scrupulously orderly, old fashioned, reactionary, banal, provencial, dilettante and, well, “square?”

Another thing that all Germans have in common is that they are small-minded, scrupulously orderly, old fashioned, reactionary, banal, provencial, dilettante and, well, “square.” You know, kleinbürgerlich?

Take this latest tourist-bashing craze going on by the Enlightened Left in Berlin (the way coolest, least kleinbürglich city in Germany), please:

“Noisy tourists go home!” reads one hostile sign in the eastern district of Friedrichshain. “Berlin doesn’t love you,” say stickers plastering traffic lights in nearby Kreuzberg.

A gallery in an area known for its trendy bars featured for months a scrawled sign in the window: “Sorry, no entry for hipsters from the U.S.”

Being petty bourgeois here isn’t pretty, folks. It never has been. But it sure is petty. And somebody’s got to do it. I just wish they’re weren’t so many volounteers here all the time.

This German Woman Right Here Knows Practically Nothing About Computers

September 12, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Hotness, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

And German men want to keep it that way. You know, so they can help them and stuff? Again and again and again?

The latest Bitkom survey has found out that only half of all German women have halfway sort of somewhat decent computer skill knowledge. And the other half are real turkeys (especially the younger ones). So let’s keep it that way.

Selbst beim Anschließen von Druckern und beim Versenden von Emails scheitern sie.

Citizens Of Düsseldorf Least Miserable Germans This Year

September 11, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

At least according to this year’s Glücksatlas (Happiness Atlas) they are. Oh boy and good for them or something.

But why they don’t just come out and call the damned thing the Misery Atlas, I’ll never know.

Am zufriedensten sind die Deutschen in den Regionen Hamburg (7,23 Punkte), Niedersachsen/Nordsee (7,16), Süd-Bayern (7,11) und Franken (7,10). Auf den letzten Plätzen rangieren Brandenburg (6,63), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (6,58) und Sachsen-Anhalt (6,56). 

Berlin Air Show To Be Held At Creepy Unfinished Ghost Airport

September 10, 2012 By in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

In a move meant to liven up the world’s oldest and perhaps stodgiest air and space trade fair, organizers of Germany’s ILA have decided to hold this year’s show on the grounds of Berlin’s infamous haunted Berlin-Brandenburg Ghost Airport.

Local legend has it that the abandoned ghost airport, originally planned to actually be completed one day and used as a real airport with real airplanes and passangers and the whole bit, fell under the curse of a group of disgruntled Brandenburg witches protesting potential Fluglärm (fly-over noise) and can never be completed until Berlin’s city government presents its first balanced budget or hell freezes over, whichever comes first.

A spotless new runway, so far unused for commercial flights, will finally feel the burn of rubber.

Well Banks Are Bad, Aren’t They?

September 9, 2012 By in Habeas Corpus, Heconomy, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

So what’s the big deal? Now all of ze Europe officially has a bad bank, too.

It’s called the ECB and is the “bad bank for all the junk debt of Europe.”

“Blank cheque for the indebted states,” was the headline of the top-selling Bild newspaper, a harsh, populist critic of the bailouts for Greece and other struggling euro zone nations, adding that the ECB move could render the euro “kaput”.

“Financial markets cheer the death of the Bundesbank.”

Germans Just Love The ECB’s New Bond-Buying Program

September 7, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Hate, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Not.

Which brings us to our next topic: The latest greatest German angst survey. A new study by R+V Versicherung (insurance) has just found out what Germans loved to be scared of most these days: The climbing cost of living (63 percent of those asked).

Außer den “Standard-Ängsten”, die die R+V Versicherung seit zwanzig Jahren bei 2500 Deutschen abfragt, stehen alljährlich auch aktuelle Themen zur Debatte.

Germans Finally Manage To Bring Muslims And Jews Together

September 6, 2012 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

To protest against restrictions on circumcision, that is. They’ll be getting together in Berlin to holler and shout and raise hell this Sunday, for instance. Warms your heart, don’t it?

When it comes to “flagrant interference” in religion, Germans may indeed have a long and proven track record and all, but as expected, they have clearly bitten off more than they can chew this time with their latest perfectly pointless and completely unnecessary stab at this ancient Jewish and Muslim practice.

They’re backpeddling as fast as they can, of course, but it’s too little too late and now everybody has hurt feelings and, well, that’s what you get for fixing things that ain’t broken.

“Gut gemeint ist leider nicht unbedingt gut gemacht.”

German Teflon

September 5, 2012 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Or Berlin Teflon, if you prefer. Whatever you want to call it, it’s way more teflony or teflonodelic than other kinds of Teflon out there.

Just ask Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) after the opening of the city’s new airport has been postponed yet again (no joke) and now won’t be ready nearly two full years later than planned. It’s his baby, you see.

“Not to mince words, Klaus Wowereit can pack his bags as Berlin mayor. Anyone who recklessly gambles with the future of a whole region, wasting hundreds of millions of euros (…) and covers up instead of looking into mistakes is not qualified to be managing a metropolis. Wowereit is not the only one who has failed in relation to the BER project, but he is the main culprit. People are not going to forget that. No matter what he does, his time is up.”

But what do you think will happen, meine Damen und Herren? Not a damned thing. This is Germany. And worse still, some politicians are just never held accountable for what they do, no matter what what they do, or don’t. But not just here. I know of this one guy from another country, for instance (the president of the something or the other) who could get caught robbing a 7-Eleven at gunpoint and nobody would care. It just ain’t right, I tell ya. But it’s da way of da woild.

German commentators are outraged over the postponement, with one (the key word here is one) calling on Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit to resign.

German Wind Offensive More Offensive Than The Rest Of Us Thought It Was

September 4, 2012 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Well that didn’t take very long. Now it’s “Germany’s offshore fiasco.”

Germany wants to pepper its northern seas with offshore wind turbines as part of its ambitious energy revolution. But strict laws, technology problems and multiple delays are turning the massive enterprise into an expensive fiasco. Investors and the public are losing patience.