Friday, April 27, 2007

Dreckecken

Achtung, Achtung already! It seems that all of a sudden, out of nowhere so-to-speak, countless Dreckecken (dirty corners) are cropping up wherever you care not to look in Berlin. Parks are being buried in picnic rests, old sofas are piling up on every other street corner, and countless tons of Elektroschrott (electronic junk) are lying around unplugged and unattended in your Hinterhof (backyard) while we speak. And the city’s sanitation department, in an unholy alliance with the dreaded Office of Order, is so alarmed about the matter that it has decided to begin a new cleanup campaign called “Working Together for a Clean Berlin.” And no, Rudy Giuliani has nothing at all to do with any of this.



Sounds harmless enough at first, right? Sure it does. It always does here… at first. But if you look a little closer, you will detect a less obvious and more sinister design. The sanitation department wants to “sensitize” Berlin’s citizens, you see. It wants them to be aware of the ever-growing “illegal waste” problem. That’s right, some types of waste are actually “illegal” here, and it doesn’t even have to be nuclear (no, come to think of it, practically every type of waste is illegal here). And worst still, the BSR (that’s the sanitation department) is even asking Berliners “to report” on any suspicious piles of Dreck they might happen to step into out there.

Well it’s all over but the crying now if you ask me. This gives this Garbage Police stuff a whole new dimension.

By the way, my own personal Dreckecke can be found way down on the bottom right of this very page. Or at least one of my many Dreckecken is down there, I should say. I prefer to call it my Schmuddelecke (nasty corner), however. That makes It sound nastier. Which, of course, it is.

Ordnung muss… sein oder nicht sein.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

PS: Thanks for the cool Elektrosmog link, Joe.

PPS: Thanks for the shape of things to come link, Kurt.

Posted by clarsonimus at 10:09:57 | Permanent Link | Comments (8) |
Comments
1 - Ihr unten rechts Drecksaecke - immer schoen sauber bleiben!
 (Comment this)

Written by: magnetic monolith at 2007/04/27 - 23:14:13
2 - This may not be a German obsession. According to this blog, it's an EU one. This kind of thing has been going on in England for some time:

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/04/space-fillers-strike-again.html

For a taste of things to come, check this out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/12/international/asia/12garbage.html?ex=1273550400&en=b553034e23553073&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Love the part of the neighborhood busybodies checking other peoples garbage.

Money quotes:
"Not content with the 34 trash categories it defined four years ago as part of a major push to reduce waste, Kamikatsu has gradually raised the number to 44."

"In Yokohama, after a few neighborhoods started sorting last year, some residents stopped throwing away their trash at home. Garbage bins at parks and convenience stores began filling up mysteriously with unsorted trash. "So we stopped putting garbage bins in the parks," said Masaki Fujihira." (Comment this)

Written by: Kurt In NYC at 2007/04/28 - 01:25:24
3 - This is sad to me, as the one thing I could always count on was germany being clean and litter free! Now it's only Canada. (Comment this)

Written by: Miss Carnivorous at 2007/04/28 - 03:25:41
4 - That's why one of my favorite scens from "Otto der Ausserfriesische" is where Otto is trying to figure out how to dispose of a tea ba. "Bio oder Normal?" It so represented my memories of trash sorting in Germany. (Comment this)

Written by: Dana at 2007/05/07 - 02:08:59
5 - Dana, excellent! Where he finds the little staple in there? That about sums it up, too. (Comment this)

Written by: Clarsonimus at 2007/05/07 - 09:13:47 in reply to: 4
6 - Definitely. I think I'll have to watch It again...I was in Ostfriesland so it was one of the few videos I brought back and had transferred.

So glad others know the movie! (Comment this)

Written by: Dana at 2007/05/07 - 10:00:59
7 - Dana, a guy's driving through Ostfriesland. He asks an Ostfriese standing by the roadway if he knows how to get to Dorf So-und-so. "Nope," says the Ostfriese. The guy drives off, but looking in his rearview mirror he sees that another Ostfriese had come up to the first one and that they were talking. Then the first Ostfriese starts waving the guy in the car back frantically. The guy backs up and rolls down his window. The Ostfriese says "This is my buddy Horst. He doesn't know how to get to Dorf So-und-so, either."
 (Comment this)

Written by: Clarsonimus at 2007/05/07 - 13:35:02 in reply to: 6
8 - Ha! I love Ostfriesenwitze. That's a pretty good one, and I haven't heard it before. I used to have a whole book of them, but I lost it. All I remember at the moment is:

How many Ostfriesen does it take to screw in a light bulb?

1001. One to hold the bulb and 1000 to turn the house.

But I think most of my favorite blonde jokes would work well if replaced by Ostfriesen! (Comment this)

Written by: Dana at 2007/05/07 - 16:19:28
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