Stress Lady’s Back

May 20, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Health, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Disease Mongering, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Sandwich Generation, Stress, Studies, Women 4 Comments

Now she’s stressed out about being in something called the “sandwich generation.”

Just eat more vegetables and get over it already, sweetheart. Sheesh. When this broad ain’t stressed out about sandwiches she’s stressed out about this, this, this or this. She’s really starting to stress me out. Know what I’m sayin’?

Rund 82 Prozent der deutschen Frauen zwischen 40 und 59 Jahren fühlen sich nach einer Studie zwischen Beruf, Familie und teilweise auch Pflege von Angehörigen immer wieder überfordert.

PS: Oddity 448. The word “Stress” is used more frequently and has a much more negative connotation in German than it does elsewhere. It is a very dirty six-letter word here. Germans strive to achieve a stable, stress-free life within predictable confines and anything that interferes with this is more stressful for them than any of us non-Germans out there can imagine. Germans will even get stressed out about stress that they don’t even have yet, thus subjecting themselves to even more stress and feelings of inadequacy (for not being under this type of stress yet), which can also be very stressful. Needless to say, this makes it very stressful for those otherwise non-stressed individuals out there who have to witness all of this.

German Of The Day: German Mut

May 18, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helections, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Cannabis, Christian Lindner, Economic Liberalism, FDP, Flat Tax, Free Choice, Free Democrats, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Liberalism, Marijuana, Political Parties, Taxation 1 Comment

Nope, that doesn’t mean German pooch or mongrel. That means German courage.

And it takes quite a bit of German courage for a German political party to come out in support of economic-liberal policies and free choice in a country like Germany these days (in the end, most Germans want everything regulated for them and prefer equality and conformity to free choice). But that is what the FDP (FDP 2.0?) is trying to do. They’re still on the outside looking in after their ousting in 2013 but appear to be bouncing back, at least for the moment.

They are currently so courageous, in fact, that they must be high. Not only are the Free Democrats now proposing that marijuana be legalized, which isn’t all that original these days, they also think it’s time for Germany to introduce a flat tax. Good luck on that. That’ll be a real hard one to sell here, as elsewhere. Who’s going to “eat the rich” then?

“Die erste Reform, die wir unserem Land empfehlen, ist eine Reform der Mentalität.”

As If German Women Talking During Sex Wasn’t Bad Enough Already

May 17, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hotness, Humor Tags: German, Germans, Germany, Language, Lippenbekenntnisse, Sex, Spiegel TV, Talking, Women Leave a comment

Now they’re talking about it again. Like afterwards even.

Must be a slow news day. This is clearly a re-run of a re-run that’s already done run. Not just the talking part, I mean. These clips, too.

But at least it’s in German. German women speaking German are pretty sexy, I find.

Frauen sprechen über Sex: Das erste und das letzte Mal

German Of The Day: Nervensäge

May 15, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: Birthdays, German, Germans, Germany, Greens, Idioms, Language, Political Parties, Politicians 4 Comments

That means “nerve saw” or annoying person. And heaven knows that Claudia Roth of the German Greens has spent an entire career making a name for herself in that department.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung even once referred to her as the “Mother of All Nerve Saws.” But that was then and this is now. She has clearly mellowed out now that she just turned 60 (today). Now it’s more like she just gnaws on your nerves.

Happy Birthday, Claudia!

Selbst Etiketten wie “Mutter aller Nervensägen”, wie die “FAZ” einmal schrieb, ärgern die streitbare Politikerin nicht. Im Gegenteil: Im Bundestagswahlkampf 2013 griff sie das Thema selbstironisch auf, eine Parteikampagne für mehr weibliche Mitglieder warb mit dem Spruch: “Wer nervt mehr als Claudia?”

German Of The Day: Behindert

May 12, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hysteria Tags: Aging, Disabilities, Disabled, German, Germany, Language, Statistics 2 Comments

That’s what Germans are. Or at least one out of eight Germans are these days: Disabled.

Not only are they getting more and more old and gray and in the way, they also seem to be doing so less gracefully.

Funny how the number could be so high here so quickly though, don’t you think (up 7 percent since 2009)? This couldn’t be another popular scam for some, could it? I’m so ashamed. How could I even think of such a thing?

Whatever it is, it reminds me of a German oddity I have observed here in Berlin: Oddity 168. If there were only two Germans left on earth, one would try to take advantage of the other by pulling out his “Schwerbeschädigter Ausweis” or disabled person ID. I was boarding a bus in Berlin once when two passengers got into a real argument over one of the seats reserved for the disabled by waving around their IDs and yelling back and forth at each other about who was the more disabled of the two. It came dangerously close to a real brawl. That made me wonder. Would the winner of the fight have then been disqualified for no longer being the most disabled one?

Gegenüber 2009 ist die Zahl der Menschen mit Behinderung um 7 Prozent beziehungsweise 673.000 Personen gestiegen.

German Of The Day: Krawalltourismus

May 1, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Anarchism, Berlin, Demonstrations, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Riots, Violence, Workers Leave a comment

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.

German Of The Day: Heimatfilme

April 29, 2015 By Hermann Observer in High Art, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Berlin, CIA, Claire Danes, Films, German, Germans, Germany, Homeland, Language, Terrorism, TV Series 2 Comments

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.

German Of The Day: Alleingang

April 19, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Anti-Americanism, Environment, Europe, Free Trade, German, Germans, Germany, GM Foods, Language, Paranoia, Protest, SPD, Trade, TTIP, USA Leave a comment

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.”

German Of The Day: Männerfreundschaft

April 17, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Beer, Crimea, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Propaganda, Putin, Saunas, Ukraine 2 Comments

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.“

Grass Bites Grass

April 13, 2015 By Hermann Observer in Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Humility, Hypocrisy Tags: Günter Grass, German, Germans, Germany, Language, Literature, Nobel Prize, Waffen-SS 4 Comments

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.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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