The ones I hear bitching and moaning all day long must be from somewhere else then

October 30, 2009

A new study has revealed that the infamous “Jammer-Ossi” (that bitchy, forever-lamenting and ungrateful East German species we-all-themselves-included admire so much) does not exist anymore.

Jammern war gestern!

The study also indicates that we, as in you, should actually admire and even emulate them. The East Germans have made it through much harder times than the world is going through right now and blah, blah, blah and not only that, their Ostalgie about those wonderful-old good-old communist days isn’t what you think it is because, well, it just isn’t.

The study is entitled “The East Germans Twenty Years after the Turning Point” and certainly sounds scientific enough to me. The researchers actually went out there and interviewed some eighty (80) people between the ages of 18 (born after the fall of the Berlin Wall) and 70 (born after the fall of the Jericho Wall). They even used psychological tests or something.

Talk about another prime example of theory meeting practice, or vice versa. I still hear all kinds of jammering all day long over here (other than my own, I mean) and it has to be coming from somewhere, people. My theory is that this particular type of jammering has simply gone down in the greater jammering noise in the meantime. To West German ears, I mean. If everybody out there is jammering, and of course everybody is, you just can’t hear that specific East German brand anymore. Those sinus wave thingies have overlaped or something.

No, sorry. The Jammer-Ossies may not exist anymore, but they are certainly still alive – and kicking. I mean bitching.

“Die Menschen im Osten begegneten überzogenen Träumen mit einem konstruktiven Misstrauen und Realismus, der sich deutlich von den oft überbordenden Glücks- und Renditeansprüchen des westlichen Maximierungsdenkens abhebt.”


Political movement or new national pastime?

October 29, 2009

Well, maybe it’s both. Some 250 cars have been set to flames in Berlin this year by political activists concerned about CO2 emissions (not enough of them out there, I guess - the emissions, I mean).

This car really burns up the road.

Hamburg environmental anarchist types, not to be outdone by those snoots down south, have lit up about 150 themselves. They are clearly doing their best these days to close their incredibility gap to Berlin as quickly as they can.

And now even Frankfurt has joined the party, or one activist there has. Pissed off about having to pay high gasoline prices all the time, this guy lit his own damned car on fire.

“Der schwarze 3er BMW mit Baujahr 1995 brannte am Freitagmorgen in einer Grünanlage nahe des Frankfurter Messegeländes komplett aus.”


Please make him go away

October 22, 2009

In his latest Black Like Me gig, “Schwarz auf Weiß” (black on white, get it?), investigative reporter type Günter Wallraff is highlighting rampant racism in Germany, again. And again and again and again. And again.

That's Günter Wallraff, wirklich.

Only this time even anti-racist groups seem to have grown tired of his not all so shocking and certainly not so originally provoked instances of discrimination here. Some are even daring to call his techniques treacherous.

Wer hat Angst vorm schwarzen Mann – in blackface?


Öko-Romantik pur

October 18, 2009

It’s time for more environmental romanticism again or something. Damn. This is turning into a new Volkssport over here. When not climbing the Reichsstag or other tall buildings in single bounds, Greenpeace activists in Berlin feel compelled to climb victory columns (there aren’t that many here either), the very place where another great Romantic once held a very romantic speech, back then, a few months ago, when everybody was still, uh, romantic. Before the election, I mean.

It’s an unhealthy mix between alpine climbing and messiah complex. Or a healthy one depending upon who you ask. A typical German one (see the Gnome post below)? Unfortunately not.

„In Kopenhagen 2009 Geschichte schreiben, Frau Merkel: Klima retten!“


How green is Berlin?

October 16, 2009

Why Berlin is so green that the brothels here offer eco-discounts to customers who can prove that they came, I mean arrived, on a bike.

How green is my valley?

Or on public transportation (yuk). Now that’s green.

“The environment is on everyone’s lips around here.”


No alternative?

October 13, 2009

Alternative Nobel Prize award watchers everywhere were shocked to learn today that contrary to expectations, President Barrack Obama will not be receiving this year’s honored honor.

No Alternative here.

The annual award, issued right after the official Nobel Peace Prize gets awarded to Obama (most likely every year now too, by the way), is given “for outstanding vision and work on behalf of our planet and its people” so like why the hell didn’t he get it, huh? Maybe because it’s “The Right” Livelihood Award or something.

I’m starting to think that this European peace prize giving industry selection process stuff is rigged.

Der Alternative Nobelpreis wird zum 30. Mal verliehen. Er unterstützt diejenigen, die “praktische Antworten” auf die drängendsten Herausforderungen der Gegenwart geben.


Westerwelle will during appearances further German speak

October 5, 2009

His refusal, a British reporter in English to answer, brought Guido Westerwelle much malice in.

Could you that in German repeat?

So will he never foreign minister be, predicted then his critics. But the FDP boss will during official functions continue German to speak and precisely this apparently Westerwelle likable makes.

I could more agree not.

“Endlich sagt es mal einer.”


Sinister American computer games everywhere you look

September 25, 2009

Quentin Tarantino movies are still okay though because he’s not, well, a gamer and these are movies and, uh, he’s cultured or something.

“Counter-strike was developed by the US Army in order to reduce the violence threshold of soldiers.”

Bad game!

“That games like these lead to violence is obvious to me, despite the debatable scientific evidence.”

“Dass solche Killerspele die Hemmschwelle gegen Gewalt herabsetzen, ist für mich eindeutig, auch wenn wissenschaftliche Belege hierfür noch umstritten sind.”


Another year, another Berlin Marathon

September 19, 2009


Alena G.

September 19, 2009

Beautiful German of the week.

Alena Gerber

Because somebody has to admire them.