That means “violent demonstration tourism,” more or less. And May Day (or International Workers’ Day) is booked out completely for this every year in Berlin.
These international workers are off that day, you see. And it’s a bewitching event that these folks just can’t afford to miss. You know, tradition and all that?
Weder mystisch noch romantisch. Für die Berliner Polizei steht run um die Maifeiertage viel Arbeit an.
Heimatfilm (German pronunciation: [ˈhaɪmatˌfɪlm], German for “homeland-film“; German plural: Heimatfilme) is the name given to a film genre that was popular in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. They were usually shot in the Alps, the Black Forest, or the Lüneburg Heath and always involved the outdoors. These films were noted for their rural settings, sentimental tone and simplistic morality, and centered on love, friendship, family and non-urban life. Also, the polarity between old and young, tradition and progress, and rural and urban life was articulated. The typical plot structure involved both a “good” and “bad” guy wanting a girl, conflict ensuing, and the “good” guy ultimately triumphing to win the girl to the happiness of everyone and the children.
Well that’s cool and all but I guess they’ve tweaked the genre around a bit because they’re going to film the next bunch of “homeland-films” with lots of guns and blood and terror and stuff right here in not so non-urban Berlin itself. But still.
The fifth series will pick up two-and-a-half years after the previous one ended, with main character Carrie Mathison out of the Middle East and in self-imposed exile in the German Capital.
An ancient German tradition, Alleingänge are when Germans, as Germans, go it alone.
In this particular case it has to do with their Empörung (another traditional German word meaning indignation or outrage) about TTIP, a planned free trade deal between Europe and the United States. Strangely, much like their hysterical reaction to Fukushima and subsequent Alleingang out of nuclear power, no one else in Europe really understands what their concern is all about.
These protestors aim to change that, however. Germany’s fellow Europeans, they feel, clearly do not seem to understand what this treaty is really about: It is a planned free trade deal between Europe and the United States. Hello? Is anyone home out there? A trade deal with the United States? As in US-Amerika?
“The U.S. push for world domination is unacceptable. Obama sends out drones to kill people and wins the Nobel peace prize. This has to stop.”
That means male bonding or man-to-man friendship.
But, like, not all of these German Putin understanders are men, are they?
He (Putin) also spoke how he and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (some call him Gazprom Gerd) were in a sauna when a fire broke out. Both escaped, but Schroeder insisted on finishing his beer first, Mr Putin said.
Auf die Frage der Moderatorin, ob Putin viel mit seinen politischen Freunden in die Sauna gehe und das Dampfbad den klassischen Konferenztischen vorziehe, erzählte Putin folgende Geschichte mit Alt-Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder:
„Ich saß mit meinem Freund in der Sauna in meiner Residenz, plötzlich fing es an zu brennen. Ich sagte: ‚Gerhard, es brennt, wir müssen hier raus.‘ Er sagte: ‚Es tut mir leid, aber vorher trinke ich mein Bier noch zu Ende.‘ Ich sagte: ‚Bist du verrückt? Es brennt, wir müssen hier raus.‘ Er ist ein eiserner Mann. Er hat tatsächlich sein Bier ausgetrunken und wir sind dann erst raus. Die Sauna brannte bis auf die Mauern nieder. Aber eigentlich gehe ich gern in die Sauna.“
And I bet he’s greener on the other side now, too.
No, but seriously folks… He was very outspoken. And he spoke out a lot. And he was a humble social critic.
Too bad he couldn’t just stick to what he was really good at. Writing The Tin Drum, for instance.
During the rise of Nazi Germany and the Second World War, Grass was in the Jungvolk (Hitler Youth) before, aged 17, being drafted into the Waffen-SS, the elite armed wing of the Nazi Party. He only revealed this fact about himself in 2006.
That means surprise!
As in the circus has just come to town?
Clinton circus has become too much, even for political junkies
That means approach or rapprochement.
That means people who always say no first and ask question later. You know, like when it comes to maybe having the Olympics in Berlin in 2024? NOlympia here, folks.
The northern port city of Hamburg was picked on Monday as the country’s preferred choice for a 2024 summer Olympics bid ahead of Berlin, with the German Olympic Sports Confederation’s (DOSB) members to ratify the proposal later this week.
“I coulda been a contender.”
That means the satisfaction of voyeuristic needs. And that is not, this guy here below repeats, NOT what his possible participation in the upcoming reality-show-media-spectacle “Mars One” on RTL is going to be about.
Well not for him, perhaps. He says he just wants to make the world a better place. On Mars (he’s young – and has an SPD party membership book). And of the 200,000 people who have applied to take part in this cosmic kamikaze picnic he has made it all the way up to the last 660 future contestants batch. You know, he’s still being casted like they do on Germany’s Next Topmodel by Heidi Klum? His mom must be really proud.
You see, the planned “Mars One” mission will need lots and lots of dough to properly sponsor, I mean send their crews to their deaths and that’s why the TV rights have already been sold to the Dutch production firm Endemol, the same folks who bring us, I mean you, shows like Big Brother. So I guess we know where this is going – other than to Mars, I mean – but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the satisfaction of voyeuristic needs, to come full circle again already. No, it clearly doesn’t. It’s just about a simple suicide mission to Mars. Nothing more, nothing less.
Hey, I’m all for the exploration of Mars. But a one-way ticket there for human beings in reality show format is, well, as one guy in the article rightly points out, “ethically questionable” to say the least.
Es geht nicht um die Befriedigung voyeuristischer Bedürfnisse.
A “joke cookie” here is what we call a wisecracker. You know, a jokester? Take this jokester here at Tegel Airport today (this guy really kills me).
He’s getting ready to board his flight with his girlfriend for their vacation in Florida, right? So they’re having a look at his carry-on bag and he says – now get this – “There’s a bomb inside.” Funny. As. Scheiße! Don’t you think? And original, too. But the real punch line part only comes around a little later: He wasn’t allowed to take that flight, screws up his vacation, impresses his girlfriend big-time forever and then gets charged with another cool German word: Ordnungswidrigkeit (an administrative offense or infraction)! Hardy, har, har. Brilliant joke cookie stuff who needs the crackers?
Some people are just more funny than other people are, I’ve found. Evolution wants it that way or something.
Like this guy’s uncle here earlier in the week (I’m assuming of course it just has to be this guy’s uncle). He walked in through security control at Tegel with a revolver and 43 rounds of ammunition in his carry-on bag because – now get this – he didn’t know it was in there! Ha, ha. Apparently the bag had been given to him when his father died and he had never bothered to look inside before and just grabbed the thing at random when he needed a bag for his flight. Hilarious stuff.
But how on earth do they manage to think any of this up?
“Dieser sensible Sicherheitsbereich ist einfach kein Ort für schlechte Scherze.”
Observing Hermann 