Sunday, October 12, 2008

Speaking of leaves…

How’s this for getting back to nature? Ya got your Edward Hopper, ya got your Dennis Hopper, ya got your Hip Hopper, but Ulli Hopper? Never head of the guy until today (thanks for the link, Joe). And that’s pretty strange, once you consider that he’s a pop star and all, or an ex-pop star, albeit a German one.



Admittedly, German pop stars can be pretty obscure, even here in Germany, but this guy has obviously gone underground because I can’t find a thing out about him anywhere. Other than the fact that he just married a pineapple, I mean. But maybe that’s enough. Maybe this is all I need to know. Maybe this is already too much to know.

It takes all kinds as they say, whoever they are, and if you’re a green rebel who wants to make the world a better place by making us aware of how we are screwing the plant kingdom by going out and marrying one (or one of it’s fruits) and then, uh, oh never mind, well that’s okay by me.

The bride’s name is Tippi, by the way, but that’s not her fault. And instead of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus (here comes the bride…) they played Zappa’s Call Any Vegetable. Or at least that’s what I have to assume.

“I will defend every plant. They are the wonders of our world – we just to need to listen to them.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:27:45 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Leaf And Let Leaf


Posted by clarsonimus at 08:22:44 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Arabella K.

Beautiful German of the week.



Because somebody has to admire them.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.


Posted by clarsonimus at 07:42:04 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, October 10, 2008

Germans to do bird flu for a while instead

Slowly getting bored with the global financial crisis which is sucking the world economy into a maelstrom of imploding agony and rapidly bringing an horrific end to the economic universe as we know it, Germans everywhere were relieved to hear that bird flu will be back for a visit over the weekend again.



Officials at Germany’s national animal health laboratory were clearly pleased to announce that the H5N1 influenza virus has returned to a duck farm in Saxony again after having successfully combated a similar outbreak in the area last December.

“Phew, this new-fangled financial meltdown crap was really starting to get a bit tedious,” said one über-terrorized German. “Now we can get hysterical about an issue we’ve had a little more routine with and actually goes away after a while.” “Oh my God,” added her husband. “We’re all going to die.”

German panic administrators, a highly-secretive and unnamed group of dark-suited androids continually operating from an airborne fleet of networked black helicopters, had given the officials their permission to issue the bird flu warning earlier that morning.

„Gute Chancen auf ein Ende des Abwärtstrends hat ein Markt, wenn die Akteure in Angst geraten.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:20:45 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Stalin Rocks

I mean rocked. Not every mass murderer has that certain, oh I don’t know, Charles Manson kind of appeal or something, but when it comes to moving the masses, Uncle Joe Stalin still pulls them in. At least in Germany he still does, of all places.



The now quite salonfähig (socially or politically acceptable) Left Party, or at least if you ask the SPD they are, has to pretend that it is bothered about photos taken of one of its head honchos up north in Lübeck and is trying to explain it away, sort of. Some non-compromising images were taken of him long, long ago in 2004 showing the guy celebrating before a Stalin portrait with a so-called Stalin cake.

After this going public, no Stalin here (stalling, get it?). Mr. Stalinist, I mean non-Stalinist in question insisted that “I have always stood for democracy and reject any type of totalitarian or dictatorial system.” Well there we have it. Just another misunderstanding as usual, I guess.

These are real people here, people. Okay, I mean real politicians. Alright, I mean these are real German politicians here thinking this and openly pulling this stuff off, in the year of our Fearless Leader 2008. And everyone thinks it’s so, well, cute. Just go and ask Frau Ypsilanti (SPD) down there in Hesse or Hessionia or whatever it is we call it in English. She’ll be letting her planned coalition with the Greens be „tolerated“ by folks like this, before pulling them directly onboard altogether a bit later, I mean.

I guess this means that the SPD would let itself be tolerated by a party with members who celebrated parties with Adolf pictures and Adolf cake, too. If the price was right, I mean. Oh, I forgot. That's different. Charles Manson, on the other hand, will definitely remain out of the question. He is, after all, an American. A US one, I mean.

„Das Foto ist auf einer satirischen Veranstaltung entstanden.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:58:04 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Renewing forces?

Extending their withdrawal is more like it.



Not having used the 100 German special forces soldiers stationed in Afghanistan once in over three years, German government officials have done the only reasonable thing and will now bring them back home again, presumably for more intensive training to not do what they are trained to do again the next time around they won’t do it.

At the same time, the Merkel government will now send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan and extend German participation in ISAF by 14 more months, this deadline conveniently and purely coincidentally ending after next year’s planned election in September.

Is there a contradiction here? Not really.

Germans break the soldiers pulling duty down in Afghanistan into two categories, you see. An observant journalist at the Süddeutsche Zeitung (who has probably now been fired) puts it this way: “In the minds of Germans, there is a good mandate (the Bundeswehr-ISAF) and a bad mandate (OEF-terrorist hunters – i.e. the special forces guys who are coming home, get it?); there is a good soldier, who would prefer to call himself a reconstruction worker, and a bad soldier, who fights in the south and has recently been combating the roots of all evil in Pakistan…"

And that’s what it’s all about; good and bad, black and white, arrogant Americans and reconstructing Germans. Or deconstructing Germans, I should say. They deconstruct reality daily, served up fresh with warme Semmel (warm buns = hotcakes), which sell quite nicely thank you.

“The strategy in Afghanistan needs to be completely overhauled.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Her damit!

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:23:38 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

All dressed up and nowhere to go

Word is out that Germany is now seeking a wider role for its army. That’s right, as wide away from the fighting as possible, hardy, har, har. No, but seriously folks, the Bundeswehr is looking for “more meaningful” assignments. Who needs to be nominally fighting the Taliban when you can be actively guarding your local Volksfest or helping Australia in its valiant fight against fungi smugglers instead? Or at least that’s what I have to assume this is all about.



The German government is now proposing using the Bundeswehr domestically in times of “very serious disasters”, you see. These happen here all the time, as you know (no one would comment on whether this had to do with the current Yankee imperialist financial market meltdown or not) and that’s why the CDU and SPD have agreed to agree on this one and, Germans being a somewhat suspicious Volk, well, this of course makes everybody even more suspicious than usual.

It could be that Angela Merkel is planning a military coup, after all. Or maybe Frank-Walter Schroeder, I mean Steinmeier wants to defend Germany against Poland again (they have been real snots lately you know). Or maybe a modern/post-modern government constitutionally bound not to just wants to give itself the option of protecting its population against a possible terrorist attack. Nah.

That’s right, if the German government wants to put the Bundeswehr into action at your (or my) next neighborhood Volksfest it will require a constitutional amendment. I’m not joking. Of course maybe a constitutional amendment wouldn’t be a bad idea if the same German government feels it has to shoot down a hijacked aircraft headed for downtown Frankfurt, something it can’t do now.

I think this makes sense, I think. And that’s probably why everybody else here seems to be against it. Things like this are always complicated in Germany you know, simply complicated.

"The military has no role domestically for historic, political, legal and professional reasons"

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 08:04:09 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Monday, October 06, 2008

Delusional

And disillusional. What a way to start your week. Don’t read this commentary. No need to, I’ll paraphrase a few choice lines instead.



“The European Central Bank – which raised rates into the teeth of the crisis in July – has played a shockingly destructive role in this enveloping slump. Its growth predictions this year have been, and still are, delusional. Neglecting its global role, it has vastly complicated the fire-fighting efforts of Washington.

It could have offered cover to the US Federal Reserve this spring when Ben Bernanke was forced by events to slash rates to 2pc. It could at least have signaled an end to monetary tightening. That is how an ally ought to behave.

Instead, it stuck maniacally to its Gothic script, with equally unhappy consequences for both sides of the Atlantic, as well as for China, Japan, and India… Far from offering reassurance, the weekend mini-summit of EU leaders served only to highlight that nobody is in charge of this runaway train. There is still no lender of last resort in euroland…

Angela Merkel has revealed her deep limitations. It was she who vetoed French efforts to launch a pan-EU rescue package, suspecting that any lifeboat fund would prove to be a Trojan Horse – a way of co-opting German taxpayers into colossal transfers of wealth to Latin Europe.

In that she is right, but it is too late now for dysfunctional EU political games. By demanding that those who caused the damage should pay for it, she crossed the line into caricature, or worse.”

Women and children first, I’d say.

Just keep repeating to yourself: It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie...

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Posted by clarsonimus at 07:29:43 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Train Drain


Posted by clarsonimus at 10:36:55 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Anica D.

Beautiful German of the week.



Because somebody has to admire them.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.


Posted by clarsonimus at 07:44:37 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |